Brinille Eliane Ellis is has served in U.S. Department of State’s diplomatic corps since 1997.  Prior to serving in Benin, she was the Deputy Office Director for Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.  From 2017 to 2020, she served as Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania.  Ms. Ellis joined the Foreign Service as a diplomatic security special agent and became a diplomat in 2002.  She has served in Senegal, Haiti, the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels, Turkey, and in Pakistan.  Her other Washington, DC assignments include the Bureau of European Affairs’ Office of Public Diplomacy and  the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ Policy Office.

Ms. Ellis holds a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature & Rhetoric and in French from Binghamton University, a Master of Public Administration with a concentration in Urban Policy from The George Washington University and has studied at The Sorbonne in Paris.  She speaks fluent French, and is conversant in Italian, Turkish and Urdu.  She is an alumna of the International Career Advancement Program (ICAP), the Atlantik Brücke Young Leaders Program, and the National Security Leadership Executive Seminar (NSELS). She is a native New Yorker, and her interests include fine art photography, African diaspora art history and historical documentaries.