Gina Cheri Walker Haspel (born October 1, 1956) is an American civil servant who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from May 21, 2018, to January 20, 2021. She was the agency's deputy director from 2017 to 2018 to Mike Pompeo, and became acting director on April 26, 2018, after Pompeo became U.S. secretary of state. She was later nominated and confirmed to the role, making her the first woman to become CIA director on a permanent basis. Early life Haspel was born Gina Cheri Walker on October 1, 1956, in Ashland, Kentucky. Her father served in the United States Air Force. She has four siblings. Haspel attended high school in the United Kingdom. She was a student at the University of Kentucky for three years and transferred for her senior year to the University of Louisville, where she graduated in May 1978 with a Bachelor of Science in languages and journalism. From 1980 to 1981, she worked as a civilian library coordinator at Fort Devens in Massachusetts. She received a paralegal certificate from Northeastern University in 1982 and worked as a paralegal until she was hired by the CIA. Early career Early CIA career Haspel joined the CIA in January 1985 as a reports officer. She held several undercover overseas positions. Her first field assignment was from 1987–1989 in Ethiopia, Central Eurasia, Turkey, followed by several assignments in Europe and Central Eurasia from 1990 to 2001. From 1996 to 1998, Haspel served as station chief in Baku, Azerbaijan. From 2001 to 2003, her position was listed as Deputy Group Chief, Counterterrorism Center. Between October and December 2002, Haspel was assigned to oversee a secret CIA prison in Thailand Detention Site GREEN, code-named Cat's Eye, which housed persons suspected of involvement in Al-Qaeda. The prison was part of the US government's "extraordinary rendition" program after the September 11 attacks, and used torture techniques such as waterboarding. According to a former senior CIA official, Haspel arrived as station chief after the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah but was chief during the waterboarding of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. On January 8, 2019, Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald, reported that partially redacted transcripts from a pre-trial hearing of Guantanamo Military Commission of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, seemed to indicate that Haspel had been the "Chief of Base" of a clandestine CIA detention site on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, in the 2003–2004