A career diplomat and senior member of the U.S. Foreign Service, Ambassador Jewell comes to Ecuador from Washington, DC, where she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Prior to that assignment, she was the Director of the Office of Policy Planning and Coordination for this Bureau. From 1999-2002, she served as Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Ambassador Jewell joined the Foreign Service in 1976 after a career in publishing at Prentice-Hall, Inc. She began her overseas career as Educational Exchanges Officer in Jakarta, Indonesia. She has also served as Economics Program Officer in Mexico City and as Press Attaché in New Delhi and Warsaw. Her Washington assignments have included assignments to the Mexico/Central America desk and a year at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where she received a Masters Degree in International Public Policy. She was Deputy Director of the Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs of United States Information Agency for one year before assuming her post as Director of that office from August 1997 to June 1999.

Ms. Jewell is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, and a graduate of Yale University.