Steven C. Walker is a career member of the Department of State’s Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor. He has been a faculty member and Vice Chancellor at the College for International Security Affairs at National Defense University in Washington, DC, since August 2023, and Acting Chancellor since June 2024.
Prior to this assignment, COM Walker was a Senior State Department Fellow at The Wilson Center for International Scholars, and before that served as Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Asmara, Eritrea, December 2019 – July 2022.
COM Walker has also been a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Global Talent Management. His overseas assignments focused on Africa and the Middle East. He has served as Consul General in Basrah, Iraq; as Deputy Chief of Mission for the Libya External Office in Malta; and in postings to Iraq (Baghdad), Syria, Yemen, Mauritania, and Turkey. In Washington, COM Walker served as the Director of the Office of East Africa Affairs and the Deputy Director of the Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs. He was also a Rusk Fellow at Georgetown University.
COM Walker was born and raised in Hawaii. He has a bachelor’s degree from Reed College, a master’s degree in international relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and is a distinguished graduate of the National War College, where he earned a master’s degree in national security strategy. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, COM Walker was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco and a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Information Agency. He is married and the proud father of two adult children.