Jayne Howell has been appointed as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

She succeeds Doug Sonnek, whose tenure in Sri Lanka ended recently.

Jayne Howell is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor.

Jayne has extensive overseas experience, including recent postings as Minister-Counselor for Consular Affairs (MCCA) in both Pakistan and Türkiye, where she served as the Ambassador’s senior advisor on immigration and visa policy as well as coordinated countrywide services for the thousands of American citizens visiting those countries each year. Jayne also worked as the Consular Section Chief in Accra, Ghana; Harare, Zimbabwe; and Kabul, Afghanistan.

In Washington, Jayne has served in several senior leadership roles in the Bureau of Consular Affairs including Deputy Executive Director, Supervisory Regional Consular Officer, and inaugural Director of 1CA, the Bureau’s leadership and management excellence program. For her work in 1CA, Jayne received the Department of State’s Luther I. Replogle Award for Management Improvement.

Originally from Charleston, South Carolina, Jayne holds a B.A. in Archaeological Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Outside of work, Jayne is a passionate explorer of ancient and historical sites, goes deep-sea fishing whenever she can, and tries to learn to cook a traditional dish from every country she visits.