Aler Grubbs is a Senior Foreign Service officer and is USAID’s Mission Director for Vietnam. She was recently USAID’s Mission Director for West Bank and Gaza and oversaw a program of over $150 million annually to improve the lives of the Palestinian people and promote lasting peace. Before that, she was USAID’s Mission Director for Burma and directed $180 million of annual USG assistance for democracy and governance, economic growth, health, education, and humanitarian assistance. She led USAID’s immediate response to Burma’s military coup in 2021 and defined a new strategy for assistance. Aler was Deputy Director for USAID’s Office of Budget and Resource Management and provided direction and oversight for USAID’s annual, worldwide program budget of approximately $26 billion. She was Deputy Mission Director for USAID/Nigeria and helped direct US development and humanitarian assistance of over $500 million annually. Her other assignments include: Egypt/regional Middle East Programs, Pakistan, Bosnia, South Sudan, and Central Asia (Kazakhstan). Aler’s work advances U.S. development and diplomacy to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals.

Prior to joining USAID, Aler worked at the UN headquarters in Geneva; supported research and analysis at the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (Monterey); taught English in Central America and Germany; and worked on local journalism and advertising at a newspaper in Boulder, Colorado.

Aler has an M.A. in International Policy Studies from Middlebury Institute of International Studies (in Monterey, California), and a B.A./Magna Cum Laude in Humanities from University of Colorado. She speaks Spanish and German and has basic knowledge of Arabic and Russian.