Daphne Michelle Titus
United States Department of State, United States Agency for International Development Senior Advisor for the Addis Ababa Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Great Lakes Region, USA.
Chair
Topic H: Tackling challenges through social knowledge
Panelist
Knowledge Exchange Forum: Entrepreneurship by Women STEM
Daphne Michelle Titus is a career member of the United States Department of State Senior Foreign Service. One of the Department of State’s premier Africanists and senior consular officers, she is currently detailed to the USAID to serve as its Senior Advisor for the Addis Ababa Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Great Lakes Region, based at the USAID Mission in Kinshasa, DRC. Ms. Titus’ most recent assignments before her detail were as the Counselor for Consular Affairs for U.S. Mission Nigeria, as the Senior Director/Diplomat in Residence for the National Capitol Region (DC, MD, DE, WV, NOVA, based at Howard University) and as the Foreign Policy Advisor (POLAD) for the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa in Djibouti. Diplomats in Residence are detailed from the Department of State to universities throughout the country to assist the Department with recruitment, build awareness of Foreign Affairs as a career path for candidates from all realms of endeavor and to assist universities and other entities in their assigned region with creating/enhancing Foreign Affairs-related programming and curricula.
Foreign Policy Advisors are detailed from the Department of State to the Department of Defense to assist selected commanders and their staff with identifying and addressing the foreign policy aspects of their military duties. Her previous positions include service as Embassy Nairobi’s Somalia Political Advisor in Djibouti, Regional Affairs Director/Senior Public Diplomacy Advisor/Policy and Coordination Officer in the Department’s Bureau of African Affairs Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Deputy Chief of Mission/Charge d’Affaires in Banjul, The Gambia and at the U.S. Mission to the African Union, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and as Senior Advisor/Domestic Operations Supervisor in the Bureau of Consular Affairs Office of Visa Services. Ms. Titus has also served overseas in Haiti, Cameroon, Kenya and Congo-Kinshasa (twice, both times as the Regional Consular Officer that provided daily support/personal service to consular offices throughout sub-Saharan Africa) as well as in Washington as a member of the Department’s Foreign Service Board of Examiners, its tenure/promotion/selection-out boards and as its Bilateral Western Hemisphere Affairs Officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. She has traveled throughout Africa and Europe as well as to Saudi Arabia, Canada, Russia, Mexico, the Canary Islands, Guatemala, Turkey, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Martinique, Jamaica, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, India, Burma, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, the Dominican Republic and China. The recipient of numerous Department of State performance awards, she is most notably an alumna of the London School of Economics and Political Science, The New College of California and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF, now the Eisenhower School) at the National Defense University. A member of the ICAF class of 2005, she received a diploma in Strategic Communications and the Antonelli Student Prize in addition to her master’s degree. Ms. Titus is from Los Angeles, California. She is married to the current U.S. Ambassador to the DRC, career Senior Foreign Service Officer Ambassador James Christopher Swan. They have girl/boy twins that are in the fifth grade at Kinshasa’s French School.