MaryKay Carlson

Ambassador MaryKay Carlson is a distinguished fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. As a career member of the US Senior Foreign Service, she served as US ambassador to the Philippines from 2022 to 2026.

Over a distinguished forty-year diplomatic career, Carlson served in senior leadership positions at US embassies in Argentina and India, including as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires, and as principal deputy executive secretary to the secretary of state in Washington. Her other overseas assignments included two tours in China, as well as posts in Ukraine, Hong Kong, Mozambique, Kenya, and the Dominican Republic. In Washington, she also served as director of the secretary’s Executive Secretariat Staff and deputy director of Korean affairs.

Carlson’s expertise includes US alliances and partnerships, Indo-Pacific security, Southeast Asia, China, maritime security, economic diplomacy, trade and investment, infrastructure, and the practice of diplomacy. As ambassador to the Philippines, she worked closely with Philippine and US political, economic, and military leaders to deepen alliance cooperation, expand bilateral economic ties, advance major infrastructure and investment initiatives, and address emerging security challenges in the South China Sea. She helped launch the Luzon Economic Corridor, a flagship US-Philippines initiative to catalyze investment in infrastructure, clean energy, logistics, and semiconductor supply chains.

Carlson holds a BA in Spanish and international studies from Rhodes College and master’s degrees in international relations from Georgetown University and national security studies from the National War College.