Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, October 2013-August 2015.

Before returning to Washington in September 2013, Ambassador Hoagland spent a decade in South and Central Asia. He was U.S. Deputy Ambassador to Pakistan (2011-2013) and Charge d’affaires for six months of that period, U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan (2008-2011), and U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan (2003-2006). He also served as U.S. Charge d’affaires to Turkmenistan (2007-2008). Prior to his diplomatic assignments in Central Asia, Ambassador Hoagland was Director of the Office of Caucasus and Central Asian Affairs in the Bureau of Europe and Eurasian Affairs, Department of State (June 2001-2003). In that position, he wrote and negotiated four of the key bilateral documents defining the Central Asian states’ enhanced relationship with the United States.

A member of the Senior Foreign Service (Minister-Counselor), Ambassador Hoagland’s earlier assignments included Director of the Office of Public Diplomacy in the South Asia Bureau of the State Department (1999-2001) where his additional portfolio was Special Adviser to the National Security Council for public diplomacy on Afghanistan. His earlier foreign assignments included Russia (where he was Press Spokesman for the U.S. Embassy), Uzbekistan, and Pakistan twice — the first time (1986-1989) working with the Afghan Resistance during the Soviet-Afghan War. He also served in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research where he was the lead analyst for Afghanistan and Pakistan (1989-1991). Subsequently, because of his Afghanistan expertise, he was U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Afghanistan (1991-1992). During the course of his career, he received the State Department Distinguished Honor Award and multiple Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards, as well as Presidential Performance Awards.

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Ambassador Hoagland completed his graduate degrees at the University of Virginia and earned a certificate in French from the University of Grenoble, France. Before joining the Foreign Service in 1985, Ambassador Hoagland taught English as a foreign language in the then-Zaire (1974-1976) and African literature at the University of Virginia’s Carter-Woodson Institute of African and Afro-American Studies.