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Senior Foreign Service Officer Kovach will serve as a diplomat in residence.

During the first Gulf War, Peter Kovach was an officer in a public policy bureau working in the Middle East.

In the mid 1990s he was in Jordan aiding peacekeeping efforts before and after their first elections.

And last year he was serving in the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, during the earthquake that struck Kashmir.

But for this academic year, Kovach will serve as a diplomat in residence at UCLA.

Kovach, a senior Foreign Service officer with 25 years of experience, will be part of the Department of Public Policy in the UCLA School of Public Affairs until the end of the academic year.

As a diplomat in residence, Kovach will counsel students on career opportunities available in the U.S. Department of State, with an emphasis on the Foreign Service, which employs ambassadors and other diplomats who staff American embassies abroad.

Kovach will also speak at Southern Californian universities on issues of American diplomacy and teach a public diplomacy class at UCLA this winter quarter.

“We’re happy to have him at our school,” said Stanley Paul, a spokesman for the School of Public Affairs. “He’ll be a great resource to the campus as a whole.”

Kovach called his role at UCLA “a threefold position.

“First, I’m here as a recruiter.”

He said a large part of his job is meeting with students one-on-one to introduce them to State Department job opportunities.

“The second thing I do is I’m part of the academic life of this community,” he said. “I know UCLA sees itself as one of the great public research universities.

“I’m just privileged to be here.”

The third part of his job consists of serving as a State Department representative for groups and universities in the area.

Kovach has served in U.S. embassies in Japan, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain and Yemen.

He has had language training in German, Hindi-Urdu, Arabic, Japanese, French, Turkish, Latin and Sanskrit.

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Kovach, who calls himself a public policy enthusiast, said he attributed much of his desire to join the Foreign Service to a year he studied abroad in India during college.

The diplomat said he has found his work in the Foreign Service to be “very exciting.”

“I have had a great career in the Foreign Service,” Kovach said.

He said he looks forward to coaching UCLA students to enter a field that he has spent much of his career pursuing.

Arlene Leibowitz, chairwoman of UCLA’s Department of Public Policy, called Kovach’s presence at UCLA a “wonderful opportunity for ... the public policy department.”

She added that the class Kovach will teach this year addresses a pressing subject for public policy today.

UCLA’s School of Public Affairs has hosted diplomats in residence in the past, including last year, and Leibowitz said the program provides students with refreshingly new perspectives on public policy.

She also said Kovach’s experience in the Middle East is particularly pertinent to current issues.

Only 15 diplomats in residence were appointed at American universities by the Foreign Service.

Other universities hosting diplomats in residence this year include UC Berkeley, Arizona State University and Duke University.

Kovach received a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a master’s degree in Asian studies from UC Berkeley.

He will be hosting an informational meeting about careers in the State Department on Oct. 5.