U.S Ambassador to the Republic of Cameroon
Christopher J. Lamora
personal info
Christopher John Lamora, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, was nominated by President Biden on April 19, 2021, as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Cameroon. The U.S. Senate confirmed him for this position on December 18, 2021, and he was sworn in on February 11, 2022.
Ambassador Lamora has worked in and on Africa throughout his 32-year Foreign Service career. His first overseas assignment, from 1992-93, was at the U.S. Consulate in Douala, Cameroon. He also served at the U.S. Embassy in Bangui, Central African Republic, and in Washington as desk officer for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Other Africa assignments in Washington include Deputy Director of the Office of African Economic and Regional Affairs, Director of the Office of Central African Affairs, and Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Africa and African Security Affairs. In this last capacity, he was also the U.S. representative to the International Contact Group for Africa’s Great Lakes region.
From 2018 to 2021, Amb. Lamora was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Accra, Ghana, the fifth-largest U.S. embassy in sub-Saharan Africa. For his Ghana service, he was chosen as runner-up for the 2021 James A. Baker Award for Outstanding Deputy Chief of Mission. From September 2021 to January 2022, he was Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. at the U.S. Embassy in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
Apart from his Africa work, Amb. Lamora has served at the U.S. embassies in Greece, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala; as Director of the Los Angeles Passport Agency; and in three positions in the Bureau of Consular Affairs in Washington. From 2007-08, as a Foreign Policy (Pearson) Fellow in the office of U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, he worked on issues including conflict minerals, the 2007-08 Kenya election crisis, and the Child Soldiers Prevention Act.
Amb. Lamora is originally from the state of Rhode Island and is a 1991 graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, where he majored in international relations with a particular focus on the Soviet Union and a minor in Russian. He joined the Foreign Service soon after graduation and is the recipient of numerous Department of State honor awards. He speaks French and Spanish, and also studied Modern Greek.