Featured Speaker
Kelly T. Clements
United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees
Kelly T. Clements joined the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as deputy high commissioner on July 6, 2015. Clements has been closely involved with refugee and displacement issues throughout her 25-year career. In 2010, Clements began serving as deputy assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), where she was responsible for humanitarian issues in Asia and the Middle East. She previously led the bureau’s strategic planning, policy development and financial management efforts to protect and assist refugees, conflict victims and vulnerable migrants worldwide. In 2014, she was acting deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. From 1993 to 1996, Clements served at the U.S. Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on a Foreign Service appointment. She was special assistant to the under secretary of state for global affairs in 1997-1998. Clements served as a senior emergency officer for Europe, the Newly Independent States and the Americas, and later as the Balkans assistance coordinator; she was deployed to Albania in 1999. She worked for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangladesh in 1992. Clements holds a B.A. in international studies and an M.A. in urban affairs from Virginia Tech University.
This event was co-sponsored by the Baker Institute Center for the Middle East, Rice University's Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance, the City of Houston Mayor’s Office of Trade and International Affairs and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Join the conversation online with #BakerRefugees.
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