Mary Emma (Mea) Arnold, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, is the Deputy Chief of Mission in Luanda, Angola. Most recently, Mea served as Office Director for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs’ (INL) Office of Africa and Middle East (AME) Programs, an office that implements foreign assistance programs in more than thirty partner nations, helping them to sustainably develop their criminal justice and civilian security sector institutions.

In previous assignments, Mea served as the Consular Section Chief in Frankfurt, Germany, overseeing an office of 90 employees. She also served as the Consul General in Nairobi, Kenya from 2013-2016 when the safety and security of U.S. citizens took center stage during the Westgate terrorist attacks and evacuations from neighboring South Sudan. Additional postings include Senegal, Nepal, Vietnam, Australia, and Pakistan, and she served in Washington as both a Watch Officer and Special Assistant in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Mea holds a MA in Public Administration from George Washington University and earned a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University in Television and Film production. She speaks Portuguese and French, and has studied Nepali, Vietnamese, and Urdu, and picked up rudimentary Wolof and German at post. She is a native of the state of Georgia. Her husband is also a Foreign Service officer, and they have two children.