30 Facts About Carey Cavanaugh

Carey Edward Cavanaugh was born on January 1955 and is a former US Ambassador, peace mediator and chairman of International Alert, a London-based independent peacebuilding organization.

Carey Cavanaugh is currently professor of diplomacy at the University of Kentucky.

Carey Cavanaugh remains active in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, working with several leading British and European non-governmental organizations on civil society initiatives and track-two diplomatic efforts.

Carey Cavanaugh was born in Jacksonville and grew up in the Jacksonville Beaches.

Carey Cavanaugh began studying Russian in ninth grade at Duncan U Fletcher High School in Neptune Beach and put his language skills to work helping HIAS assist Jewish refugee families from the USSR resettle in North Florida and Jacksonville's Sister City Association build a relationship with the Russian naval port of Murmansk.

Carey Cavanaugh earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in 1976.

Carey Cavanaugh went on to graduate study in government and international affairs at the University of Notre Dame, receiving a Master of Arts degree in 1978.

Carey Cavanaugh worked directly with Chairman Les Aspin and House Committee on Armed Services members to instruct their Supreme Soviet counterparts on how to perform legislative oversight.

When Eduard Shevardnadze became President of the Republic of Georgia in 1992, Carey Cavanaugh was sent to Tbilisi as Charge d'affaires, leading the team that established the US embassy to that new independent state.

Under the administrations of presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, Cavanaugh spearheaded or helped advance peace efforts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Turkey.

Carey Cavanaugh later dealt with the issue of the handling by Swiss banks of Holocaust-era bank accounts which held deposits made by victims of Nazi persecution, while serving as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Switzerland.

Carey Cavanaugh was appointed tenured full professor at the University of Kentucky and director of its Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce in August 2006.

Carey Cavanaugh held the position of director for a decade before taking academic sabbatical to be executive-in-residence at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge's Clare College.

Carey Cavanaugh's policy writing and research focus primarily on peace efforts in the South Caucasus, in particular the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Carey Cavanaugh fostered a focus on Mideast politics that has included regular student attendance at the Middle East Institute's annual conference in Washington, DC and participation in the annual Doha Forum in Qatar.

Carey Cavanaugh's teaching focuses on diplomacy, negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution; the diplomacy of nuclear weapons; and international ethics.

Carey Cavanaugh has served repeatedly as a senior scholar for IREX.

Carey Cavanaugh was a founding board member of the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship in 2007 and until 2013 developed the curriculum for its annual student congress.

From 2014 to 2017, Carey Cavanaugh was involved in a multi-year effort to address the problem of fraternity hazing on college and university campuses in the United States and Canada, serving on a presidential commission for the North American Interfraternity Conference The commissioners' report impacted more than 5,500 fraternity chapters on more than 800 campuses with approximately 350,000 members.

Since leaving the Foreign Service, Carey Cavanaugh has engaged with international non-governmental organizations in a variety of dialogue and peacebuilding initiatives.

In 2009, Carey Cavanaugh took part in Conciliation Resources' "Karabakh 2014" project which commissioned papers from Armenian and Azerbaijani analysts to explore scenarios for the state of the conflict five years hence.

Carey Cavanaugh served as a director and trustee of Conciliation Resources from 2014 to 2018.

In 2018, Carey Cavanaugh was appointed chairman of the Board of Trustees of International Alert.

Carey Cavanaugh is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the American Foreign Service Association.

Carey Cavanaugh sits on the Kentucky advisory committee of the US Global Leadership Coalition, a grouping of businesses and non-profits that encourages greater support and funding for diplomacy and development.

Carey Cavanaugh is the recipient of a number of State Department awards, including two individual Superior Honor awards and the James Clement Dunn Award for Excellence.

In 2015, Carey Cavanaugh was named by Delta Chi International fraternity as one of two Distinguished Delta Chis based upon his outstanding civic service in higher education and his past and continuing engagement toward advancing international peace.

Carey Cavanaugh was tapped as an honorary member of Florida Blue Key in 2017.

In 2018, Carey Cavanaugh received the University of Florida's Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Carey Cavanaugh has two brothers: Terence Carey Cavanaugh and James Ponti.