President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

• Rick Lowe – Member, National Council on the Arts
• Tulinabo Salama Mushingi – Ambassador to Burkina Faso, Department of State 

The President also announced his intent to appoint the following individual to a key Administration post:

• Eric P. Schwartz – Member, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

President Obama said, “The extraordinary dedication these individuals bring to their new roles will greatly serve the American people.  I am grateful they have agreed to serve in this Administration and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come.”

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

Rick Lowe, Nominee for Member, National Council on the Arts
Rick Lowe is founder of Project Row Houses, an arts and cultural community located in Houston, Texas.  He has participated in national and international art exhibitions and programs since 1995.  In 2012, Mr. Lowe was an artist in residence at the Community Innovators Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tensta Konsthall in Stockholm, Sweden.  Previously, he was a Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2011, a Visiting Artist at the Otis College of Art in Los Angeles, CA in 2010, and a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design from 2001 to 2002.  Mr. Lowe serves as a board member of the Menil Foundation.  He received the Creative Time’s Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art & Social Justice in 2010, the United States Artists Fellowship in Design in 2009, and the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities in 2002. 

Dr. Tulinabo Salama Mushingi, Nominee for Ambassador to Burkina Faso, Department of State
Dr. Tulinabo Salama Mushingi, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor, is Deputy Executive Secretary and Executive Director of the Executive Office of the Secretary of State.  Previously, from 2009 to 2011, he was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  From 2006 to 2009, he was Counselor for Management Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  Other overseas posts include: Management Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Casablanca, Morocco (2001-2003) and General Services Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique (1994-1996).  His Washington assignments include: Supervisory General Services Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary (2003-2006) and Counseling and Assignment Officer in the Bureau of Human Resources (1999-2001).  He began his career as a language and cultural trainer for the U.S. Peace Corps.  Dr. Mushingi received a B.A. and an M.A. from the Institut Superieur Pedagogique in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, and received an M.A. from Howard University and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University.

President Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individual to a key Administration post:

Eric P. Schwartz, Appointee for Member, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Eric P. Schwartz is Dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, a position he has held since 2011.  From 2009 to 2011, he was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration.  Mr. Schwartz served as the United Nations Secretary General’s Deputy Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery from 2005 to 2007, and as Chief of Office in Geneva for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2003 to 2004.  From 1993 until 2001, he was on the staff of the National Security Council, and from 1986 to 1989, he served as Washington Director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.  He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.  Mr. Schwartz received a B.A. from Binghamton University, an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.