First female U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dies at 84

“We are heartbroken to announce that Dr. Madeleine K. Albright, the 64th U.S. Secretary of State and the first woman to hold that position, passed away earlier today,” the family wrote. “The cause was cancer. She was surrounded by family and friends. We have lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend.”

Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelová and immigrated to the United States from Czechoslovakia with her family in 1948. She earned a PhD from Columbia University in 1975, worked for former Senator Edmund Muskie and later with Zbigniew Brzezinski on the U.S. National Security Council during the Carter administration. She later served in the administration of President Bill Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and then as Secretary of State. President Barack Obama gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

Her family was Jewish and converted to Roman Catholicism when she was five years old. Three of her Jewish grandparents died in concentration camps.

Her family, which was original Jewish before it converted to Roman catholicism when she was five years old, described her as “a tireless champion of democracy and human rights” who was at the time of her death a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

She was also chair of Albright Stonebridge Group of Dentos Global Advisors, chair of Albright Capital Management, president of Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, chair of the National Democratic Institute, chair of the U.S. Policy Board, and an author.

“She founded the Albright Institute for Global Affairs at Wellesley College, served a lifetime trustee of The Aspen Institute, and was a member of the chapter of the Washington National Cathedral,” the family added.