“I ’ve been in enough positions to respect people with different views,” said Condoleezza Rice (1954 - ). Indeed, her résumé in international diplomacy is vast. From 2005 to 2009, she served as the first African American woman to hold the high office of United States Secretary of State. Immediately preceding that, she was the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, more commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor from 2001 to 2005.

Among her many other jobs, Rice served as Stanford University’s Provost for six years and professor of political science at Stanford, winning two of the highest teaching honors—the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

During the George H.W. Bush Administration, Rice served as Director, then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Her other positions included Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Federal Advisory Committee on Gender—Integrated Training in the Military.

In the private sector, Rice was on the Board of Directors of: Chevron, Charles Schwab Corporation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, University of Notre Dame, International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan, Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition, San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors, and KQED—public broadcasting for San Francisco. She was a founding member of New Generation of East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California, and Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula.

Rice is also an author, with books including Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiances: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She has also written extensively about Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Condoleezza Rice wanted to become a concert pianist as a child, and she still enjoys the piano to this day. Her formal education includes degrees from University of Denver, University of Notre Dame, and the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She’s received honorary degrees from Morehouse College, University of Alabama, University of Notre Dame, National Defense University, Mississippi College School of Law, University of Louisville, and Michigan State University. Condoleezza Rice resides in Washington, D.C.