About the Author

Patrick Mendis serves as the vice president of academic affairs at the Osgood Center for International Studies and is a visiting scholar in foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is an adjunct professor of diplomacy at Norwich University’s Master of Arts in Diplomacy program.

Before returning to academia, Mendis served as an American diplomat at the U.S. Department of State where he chaired a number of U.S. interagency working groups, managed the Department’s international educational and cultural programs, advised the U.S. Delegations to the United Nations, and served as vice chairman of Secretary Colin Powell’s Open Forum. After his service, for which he earned the Department’s Meritorious Honor and Benjamin Franklin Awards, he worked as a consultant and economist at the Department of Energy’s Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He also lectured at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, the USDA Graduate School, and participated in the NASA Leadership Program at the Federal Executive Institute. Mendis served as a board member of the USDA Graduate School, a senate staffer on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a legislative intern in the Minnesota House of Representatives, a delegate to the United Nations, and a consultant to the World Bank.

Mendis served as a visiting professor of economics and public policy at the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea program and authored a book, The Human Side of Globalization (3rd Edition), exploring the impact of Washington Consensus in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He has taught in the former Soviet Union through the University of Minnesota, where he received the President’s Outstanding Leadership and Service Award and the Hubert Humphrey Alumni Award for Leadership. As a military professor through the University of Maryland, he taught MBA and international relations courses at every major military base in the NATO and Pacific Commands, and later in China, for which he received Maryland’s Stanley Drazek Teaching Excellence Award. Mendis has also been a visiting professor at Yale University’s Center for International and Areas Studies for two summers.

Mendis has been recognized with numerous honors for his leadership and scholarship, including the Governor Harold Stassen Award for United Nations Affairs, the Twenty-first Century Trust Fellowship at Oxford University, the Socrates Fellowship at the Aspen Institute, the Coolidge Fellowship at Columbia University, and the Harvard Leaders Scholarship at the Kennedy School of Government. A fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, Mendis is listed in Who’s Who in America and serves on the editorial board of The Public Manager and the board of directors of The Bureaucrat, Inc. He served as the founding president of the Society for International Development and vice president of the United Nations Association in Minnesota.

An alumnus of the Harvard Executive Leadership Program at the Kennedy School of Government, Mendis earned his PhD in geography/applied economics from the University of Minnesota, MA in international development and foreign affairs from the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and BS in business administration and economics (first class honors) from the University of Sri Lanka.

He has authored more than 100 books, journal articles, newspaper columns, seminar papers, and government reports. A travel enthusiast, Mendis has either traveled to or worked in more than 75 countries and all 50 states. He also enjoys hiking, swimming, and watching the sunset with his family.