Condoleezza Rice

Biography

Condoleezza Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1954 and grew up in the segregated South. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science at the University of Denver in 1974, a master's at the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and a doctorate from Denver's School of International Studies in 1981. She worked in the State Department under President Carter and then joined the faculty at Stanford University.

From 1989 to 1991 she advised President George H. W. Bush on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on the National Security Council, during the Soviet collapse and German reunification. Back at Stanford she served as provost from 1993 to 1999, and she sat on Chevron's board until January 2001.

Under President George W. Bush she was the first woman national security advisor (2001–2005) and then secretary of state (2005–2009), the first African-American woman in that office. As secretary she promoted what she called Transformational Diplomacy, aimed at spreading democratic government, especially in the Middle East. She returned to Stanford in 2009 as a professor and Hoover Institution fellow, joined the Graduate School of Business faculty in 2010 and became director of the Hoover Institution in September 2020.