A career Foreign Service Officer, Jo Ellen Powell served as Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Resources, and as Consul General in Frankfurt, Germany.

Following her retirement in 2017, she continued to support the Foreign Service and the Department of State, serving as a mentor to Ambassadorial and Deputy Chief of Mission/Principal Officer seminars as well as the Senior Executive Training seminar.  She has served in multiple capacities as a senior adviser to the Director General of the Foreign Service. 

Ambassador Powell’s other Foreign Service assignments include Amman, Jordan, the Department of State’s Operations Center, Beirut, Lebanon, Rome, Italy, Paris, France, Canberra, Australia, the Executive Secretariat, and Executive Director of the Western Hemisphere Affairs bureau. In 2005, she was a recipient of the Department’s Luther Replogle Award for Management Improvement. Her languages are French, Italian, German, and some Arabic.

Ambassador Powell has been a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy since 2015.  She currently serves as interim executive director of the Una Chapman Cox Foundation. Her husband Stephen Engelken is also a retired senior Foreign Service Officer.