Elizabeth Darius-Clarke, an educator, presented her credentials as Saint Lucia’s Ambassador to the United States to President Barack Obama on Aug. 5, 2015. Darius-Clarke is also her country’s representative at the Organization of American States. It’s her first diplomatic posting.

Darius-Clarke is from Castries, Saint Lucia’s capital. She was educated at St. Joseph’s Convent and later earned a B.A. at the University of the West Indies, an M.A. at the University of Manchester and another M.A. at Durham University.

Darius-Clarke is a management consultant and for more than 20 years has been an educator, most recently on the faculty of Monroe College’s Saint Lucia campus.

Darius-Clarke’s husband, Leo Clarke, is general secretary of the ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP). They have a son and a daughter. When Darius-Clarke presented her credentials in Washington, her family came along. Her son, Osai Clarke, a science major at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, took the opportunity to give Obama a three-minute summary of his thesis, which is on plasmonic nano architecture, tiny structures used to manipulate light.

-Steve Straehley