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Dr. Patrick Mendis
Educator, Diplomat, and Author
Patrick Mendis is an educator, diplomat, author,
and executive in government service. He taught
MBA and MPA as well as American foreign policy,
global trade, and international affairs courses
at the University of Minnesota, University of
Maryland, and Yale University before joining the
Department of State, where he served under
Secretary Madeleine Albright and General Colin
Powell. In 2012, Secretary Hillary Clinton
appointed Professor Mendis as a
commissioner to the U.S. National Commission
for UNESCO.
He is currently a distinguished senior fellow at
the School of Public Policy (SPP) as well as an
affiliate professor of public and international
affairs (PIA) and an adjunct professor of
geography and geoinformation science (GGS) at
George
Mason University.
A fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science
and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
(in the St. Paul-Minneapolis Committee), Dr.
Mendis previously worked at the Minnesota House
of Representatives, the U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, the World Bank, and the
United Nations.
After serving in the U.S. Departments of
Agriculture, Defense, Energy and State, Mendis
returned to academia as vice president of the
Osgood Center for International Studies and
foreign policy visiting scholar at the Johns
Hopkins University’s Paul Nitze School of
Advanced International Studies in Washington,
D.C.
Professor Mendis has authored more than 100
journal articles, government reports, newspaper
columns, and several books including, most
recently,
Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the
American Empire (2010) and
Trade for Peace (2009). Professor
Stephen Trachtenberg, president emeritus of the
George Washington University, and Professor
Brian Atwood, former dean of the University of
Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey School of Public
Affairs, respectively wrote the forewords for
these two highly acclaimed books.
While serving as a visiting professor at the
University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea
program, Dr. Mendis wrote
The Human
Side of Globalization (3rd edition
2009), an analysis of the interplay between
American foreign policy and the indigenous
cultures of the Caribbean, Latin American,
African, and Asian countries. The late
science-fiction writer and futurist Sir Arthur
Clarke wrote the foreword to the book.
Dr. Mendis is an alumnus of the
Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the
University of Minnesota and the Harvard Kennedy
School (HKS). A Socrates fellow at the Aspen
Institute, he also attended Oxford University’s
Merton College as a 21st Century Trust fellow.
Dr. Mendis is a first class honors graduate of
the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri
Lanka. A former trustee of the Humphrey School
Alumni Board, Dr. Mendis currently serves as a
counselor on the HKS Alumni Council Board in
Washington.
A former American Field Service (AFS) exchange
scholar from Sri Lanka to Minnesota, Dr. Mendis
earned his diploma from Perham High School.
After working seven years as a lecturer
in international relations and a visiting
scholar in applied economics at the University
of Minnesota, he served as a military professor
through the University of Maryland for the U.S.
Department of Defense in the NATO and the
Pacific Commands. He taught graduate and
undergraduate courses at every major military
base in England, Italy, Germany, Japan, Spain,
South Korea, and Turkey.
He also taught at the Leningrad State University
in the former Soviet Union and the Northwestern
University in Xi’an, China. He is currently a
consulting professor of international affairs at
the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in
Guangzhou. He has lived in and traveled to more
than 100 countries as well as visited all 50
states in America. Professor Mendis is listed in
Who’s Who
in America and
Who’s Who
in the World.
Over the years, Mendis established a number of
scholarships and awards in Sri Lanka and the
United States including, most recently, the
annual
Edward Burdick Legislative Award at the
University of Minnesota. He supports the
kiva micro-lending programs in over 30
countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
He has received numerous awards and honors for
his leadership, public service, and
philanthropic activities. These include the
Hubert Humphrey Outstanding Leadership Award,
the University of Minnesota President’s Award
for Outstanding Leadership and Service, the
University of Maryland’s Stanley Drazek Teaching
Excellence Award, the United Nations Medal for
the International Year of the Youth, the Harold
Stassen Award for United Nations Affairs, the
USDA Graduate School Outstanding Service Award
from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the
U.S. State Department’s Meritorious Honors Award
and the Benjamin Franklin Award.
Professor Mendis and his Scandinavian wife live
in the Washington, D.C., area but they consider
Minnesota their home. Their son is a doctoral
student in material science engineering at
Purdue University; their daughter is an
electrical engineering student at the University
of Virginia.
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