Abigail Friedman, J.D.

Visiting Professor of Organizational Sciences at The George Washington University

Abigail Friedman is Visiting Professor in the Department of Organizational Sciences for the 2007-2008 term.  A career State Department officer, Ms. Friedman joined the Foreign Service in 1988 and has held postings in Japan, France, Canada, Portugal and Washington.    

In the course of her State Department career, Ms. Friedman has worked on a wide range of foreign policy issues.  From 2004-2007, she served as U.S. Consul General in Quebec City, where trade, the environment, and border security dominate our foreign policy agenda.  Ms. Friedman also represented the U.S. in the Arctic territory of Nunavut (Canada).   Prior to Canada, Ms. Friedman worked on North Korea matters, first in Tokyo (2000-03) and then in Washington, as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Six Party Talks and Special Assistant in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs.   From 1995-2000, Ms. Friedman worked on the Balkans.  She participated in the Dayton Peace negotiations for Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995), was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Rambouillet talks on Kosovo (1999), an election observer in Srebrenica, Bosnia (1996), and participated in the initial deployment of U.S. officials monitoring the Kosovo cease-fire.  During the 1991 Gulf War, Ms. Friedman worked at the U.N., assisting in the start-up of UNSCOM, the U.N. agency charged with overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.  She has also served as special assistant and speechwriter to Ambassador Walter Mondale (Tokyo, 1994-5). 

Ms. Friedman began her professional career as an attorney with the U.S. Senate Legal Counsel’s office.  She continued to work as an attorney in private practice in Washington, D.C. until joining the State Department.

Ms. Friedman is the recipient of several State Department Superior Honor Awards.  She received her B.A. with honors from Harvard University and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.  She speaks French, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.