Eric Benjaminson

Eric’s first career was in the U.S. State Department, where he served for 32 years, retiring in 2013 as the U.S. Ambassador to Gabon and, concurrently, to São Tomé & Príncipe. He was posted in a number of countries over the years, mostly in Africa and northern Europe. Eric has a bachelor’s degree (Honors) in history and a master’s degree in Russian history from the University of Oregon, and he speaks French and Russian. Eric is the published author of three articles on Jewish/Holocaust Studies, and his M.A. thesis dealt with Soviet artistic descriptions of concentration camps liberated by the Red Army.

In addition to his Foreign Service career, Eric was an exchange student in Amsterdam. He also lived in Israel while his father was there on a research fellowship. Eric now works as an international affairs/study abroad director at the University of Chicago.

Eric is married, with two adult daughters. In their free time, he and his wife, Lara, enjoy traveling, flying with his private pilot’s license, and exploring Chicago with their two very large retrievers, Sasha and Jackson.