Ambassador Brian E. Carlson, an experienced public diplomacy specialist and a Career Minister in the Foreign Service, serves the State Department as senior liaison with the Department of Defense for strategic communication under the direction of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

Carlson has served 36 years in the Foreign Service, including as the Ambassador to the Republic of Latvia 2001-2005. Before going to Riga, and while managing worldwide operations for the Under Secretary of State, Ambassador Carlson co-produced President Clinton’s November 2000 “White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy.” He has advanced nine overseas trips for U.S. presidents and managed press operations for international events. He was a member of the Defense Science Board's task force that produced the 2008 study of public diplomacy and strategic communication.

He speaks Latvian, Spanish, Norwegian, Bulgarian and Serbian.