Dorothy Sampas was born in 1933 in Washington, D.C. She was educated at the
University of Michigan and the
University of Paris. She received her PhD from
Georgetown University in 1970. Sampas joined the State Department in 1957 after passing the
Foreign Service exam. She also received a certificate from the Defense Resources Management Institute at the
Naval Postgraduate School. Sampas was appointed to be the U.S. ambassador to
Mauritania on August 26, 1994. She was the first woman in this position. One of Sampas's main points of focus during her tenure was human rights and slavery.
USAID,
USIA, and the Marines were pulling out of Mauritania, leaving Sampas with very few officers working in the embassy in
Nouakchott. She was also a member of the
Cosmos Club. In 2017, Sampas was awarded the
Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievement Award. == References ==