KEI Contributor

Aaron Thompson is an Economic Officer covering the Republic of Korea in the State Department’s Office of Korean and Mongolian Affairs. He has been a Foreign Service Officer since 2013, and has previously served in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Johannesburg, South Africa, and studied Mandarin Chinese in Chengdu, China. His most recent tour was in the Bureau of International Organizations, where he covered Europe and Syria issues in the Office of UN Political Affairs, and was heavily involved in the UN Security Council’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Aaron was a civil servant at the State Department, working in the Operations Center and in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, where he served as a counternarcotics analyst for South America and a political analyst for Colombia and Ecuador. He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Johns Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin. Aaron is a three-time Jeopardy! champion and was a semifinalist in the 2006 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. He is originally from San Jose, California and lives with his wife and two daughters in Alexandria, Virginia.