New chargé d’affaires at US embassy in Sofia

Career Foreign Service Officer Susan Falatko arrived in Sofia on February 18 to assume the role of chargé d’affaires at the US embassy to Bulgaria, the embassy said in a Facebook post.

Deputy chief of mission H Martin McDowell had been temporary head of the embassy after US President Trump accepted the resignation of Kenneth Merten as ambassador to Bulgaria. Merten had taken office in April 2023.

The embassy said that before her appointment as chargé d’affaires of the US embassy in Sofia Falatko’s service includes assignments as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Ljubljana, Slovenia; director of the Office of South Central Europe (Western Balkans) at the State Department in Washington, DC; deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Port Louis, Mauritius; and public affairs officer at the US embassy in Kigali, Rwanda.

She has also served in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Geneva, Switzerland; Havana, Cuba; and Bamako, Mali.

Falatko has masters’ degrees from the National Defense University and the George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Iowa.

With Falatko’s appointment, H. Martin McDowell has resumed his duties as deputy chief of mission at the embassy, it said.