Events & Calendars Food for Thought Lunch - Sita Sonty '00, Director of Foreign Policy & National Security, Raytheon

Join Sita Sonty '00 for lunch and a conversation about her career in foreign service. Lunch from The Works Bakery Café will be provided. Space is limited, RSVP in Quest.

Prior to joining Raytheon, Sonty was a foreign service officer for the U.S. Department of State with 15 years of service. At the State Department, Sonty served as the executive secretary of the International Security Advisory Board, senior political desk officer for Indian affairs, attache for cultural and educational affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia, attache for cultural and educational affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, desk officer for Syria at the State Department in Washington, desk officer for Iraq, political action officer at the Coalition Provisional Authority (and, subsequently, the U.S. Embassy) in Baghdad, and as a vice consul at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt.

Sonty’s native tongue is Telugu; she also speaks Hindi, French, Arabic, Croatian and Urdu. She received two individual Superior Honor Awards from the U.S. Department of State for her work on the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006 and for her Economic Statecraft Program in Southeast Europe in 2013.

Sonty graduated with distinction from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, earning a Master’s degree in Conflict Management, African Studies, and Development Finance. She majored in Political Science and Economics at Amherst and earned the Densmore Berry Collins Award for Best Political Science Thesis on the topic of Suicide Law in the U.S.