A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Caroline Savage is currently assigned as the next Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, Hungary.  Most recently, she served as Director of the State Department’s Office of Russian Affairs.  She also previously led the 400-person U.S. Consulate General in Almaty, Kazakhstan, including through historic violence and authorized departure.  Her earlier Washington tours include roles as Director of the State Department’s Foreign Press Centers in Washington DC and New York, and as Director for Russia and Central Asia on the National Security Council.  Ms. Savage was a non-resident fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy from 2019-2021 and a Rusk Fellow in 2018 to 2019, when she taught courses on Diplomatic and Military Statecraft and U.S.-Russia Relations and launched the Diverse Diplomacy Leaders series.  Her previous overseas postings include Azerbaijan, Mozambique, Belarus, and Luxembourg. Raised in Wisconsin, Ms. Savage graduated from Georgetown University and earned Masters’ degrees in Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies and Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has studied Hungarian, Kazakh, Russian, Azerbaijani, French, and Portuguese.