Nancy Lifset earned her B.A. in journalism at the University of Maryland (1980), and began her 25-year stint on Capitol Hill during her senior year of college.  She cut her teeth “digging dirt,” doing opposition research for several U.S. Senate campaigns, but spent the bulk of her Hill career as a staffer in the House and Senate, where she handled everything from “guns” to “butter” issues, and got her first taste of the “wild life” in the work hard, play hard world of Washington, D.C.  She retired from the Hill in 2006, then returned to work as a lobbyist in the private sector, but left it to chart a new course in 2009. Leaving behind the workaday world and years of professional drama, she headed for Southern Africa in the summer of 2009, where she began living and writing “Back to the Wild Life.” 

A self-described South Africa “junkie,” Nancy first visited the country in 1998.  She spent a month driving from one end of the country to the other, from coastal areas to the bush, from the largest cities to the smallest villages, taking in the scenery, wildlife and lots of wine along the way.  That transformational experience left her hooked on the beauty, magic and spirit of the land that she has visited several times since.

 Passionate about wine, Nancy’s “no connoisseur – just the ultimate consumer.”  Her guiding principle has always been “keep it simple and straight up” – all except for the glass.  A lifelong dog lover, she’s been actively involved with Rhodesian Ridgeback rescue.  No less a cause for Nancy is that of wildlife conservation. All of these passions converged in her 2009 trip to Africa, and ultimately, were part of her journey back to the wild life.  It was that journey that led to her current posting as the self-annointed, officially non-official stateside “Shadow US Ambassador to South Africa.”

 Raised in the suburban Philadelphia suburb of Springfield, PA, she’s a longtime resident of Capitol Hill, where she still lives with her husband and their dog, Margo.