Daniel Kronenfeld

Dan Kronenfeld has been working for over two decades at the U.S. Department of State. For the last six of those years, he has had leadership positions working on multilateral human rights issues. He is currently the Director of the Office of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the Bureau for International Organizations, where he oversees U.S. human rights and humanitarian policy in the multilateral arena, particularly at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN General Assembly in New York. From 2019 to 2022, Dan served as the U.S. Deputy Representative for human rights in Geneva, where he led U.S. engagement with the Human Rights Council.  In these two roles Dan oversaw multilateral efforts to hold Russia accountable for its abuses in Ukraine and domestically, document Iran’s mistreatment of women following the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, and draw international attention to China’s mistreatment of Uyghurs and members of other ethnic minorities, among other actions.

Prior to serving in Geneva, Dan led the Political/Economic section at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from 2015 to 2018 – a period of mounting repression of civil society, during which the principal opposition party was banned, independent media were shuttered, and major civil society figures were killed or arrested. Dan helped lead international efforts to document this repression, free imprisoned human rights defenders, and raise concerns about Cambodia’s actions at the Human Rights Council.

Dan served previous tours as Deputy Director of the Office of Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Maldives Affairs in Washington, DC (2012-14); Deputy head of the Political/Economic section in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (2008-11); Political/Economic Officer in Vladivostok, Russia; and the Foreign Affairs Officer responsible for Afghanistan in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration in Washington.  Before joining the State Department, Dan worked for several years in the private sector in San Francisco.

Dan has an AB in anthropology (honors) from Stanford University and a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, where his research focused on ethnic identity, conflict, and politics in the countries of the former Soviet Union.  He wrote his dissertation on the link between interethnic contact and social cohesion in Latvia. Dan speaks reasonable French, passable Russian, dubious Khmer, and a two or three distantly remembered words of German and Latvian. Dan is married to Lisa Walker, a fellow Berkeley PhD – though she was smart enough to do hers in history – an expert in health development who also works at the State Department. They have two precocious children, whose expertise tends to run toward internet memes.