FAO Program Director

Lieutenant Colonel Teremuura “Ura” Shamel

Lieutenant Colonel Teremuura Shamel is the Army Foreign Area Officer Program Director at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, California. He is an Africa FAO (48J) with operational tours as the Chief of the Office of Security Cooperation to the Kingdom of Morocco; as a Career Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Hemisphere FAOs at the Army Human Resources Command (HRC); as a POL-MIL planner for the countries of Nigeria and Mali at the Southern European Task Force – Africa (SETAF-AF); and as the Chief of the Office of Security Cooperation to the Republic of Chad.

Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Shamel served in multiple leadership positions of increasing responsibilities as a Signal officer, culminating as the 3^rd Battalion, 3^rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) Battalion Signal Officer/SIGCEN director.

Lieutenant Colonel Shamel holds a master’s of International Relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University along with an executive master’s in public policy and development on Africa from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) in Paris, France and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Anthropology from the University of Oregon.

Lieutenant Colonel Shamel is married to the former Kristina Brown of Atlanta, Georgia. They have three children.