Roy Leslie Austin

Dr. Roy Leslie Austin was nominated August 27, 2001, by President George Walker Bush as Ambassador to Trinidad & Togabo and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate September 26, 2001. Ambassador Austin was "sworn in on October 19, 2001, as United States Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary." He arrived at the Port of Spain and assumed his duties on November 27, 2001.

President Bush and Dr. Austin were classmates at Yale University, graduating in 1968, as well as sharing the distinction of both being tapped for Skull and Bones. When Austin was contacted by Stephen Prothero for an article on the "Skulls", Austin, then a sociology professor at Penn State, responded: "'We don't discuss those things ... We just don't.'"

Also see Skull and Bones' Class of 1968. --- "Roy L. Austin, Ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, was born on December 13, 1939 in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. After completing school on St. Vincent, he worked as a secondary school teacher and a customs officer, before winning a scholarship to Yale University in 1964. He graduated from Yale with a B.A, in sociology in 1968, and later attended the University of Washington in Seattle, where he received a Masters' in Sociology in 1972 and a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1973.

"From 1972 to 2001 he was a faculty member in the Sociology department at Penn State University, serving as Director of the Crime, Law and Justice program and later, Director of the Africana Research Center. His academic focus included race and gender disparities in the criminal justice system. He has contributed to a wide variety of journals and scholarly publications on these and related issues. He is a member of the American Sociological Association, the Caribbean Studies Association and the American Society of Criminology.

"He is married to the Glynis Josephine Sutherland Austin, who is also a native of St. Vincent. They have three grown children: Roy L. Austin, Jr., Roger Austin, and Deborah Austin Depay.

"Dr. Austin was a keen cricketer during his youth, and carried his love for the game with him to the United States, where he played both cricket and soccer as a student. Later, he coached youth soccer in Pennsylvania."