Patrick Mendis

Who is Patrick Mendis?

Patrick Mendis is an educator, diplomat, author, and executive in government service in the United States. A former American diplomat and military professor in the Nato and Pacific Commands during the Clinton and Bush administrations, he was twice appointed as a commissioner of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO at the State Department by the Obama administration. His appointment to the UNESCO Commission ended during the Trump administration when the White House withdrew from the UN agency.

A Taiwan fellow of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (RoC), Dr. Mendis is currently teaching as a distinguished visiting professor of global affairs at the National Chengchi University and a senior fellow of the Taiwan Center for Security Studies in Taipei. Previously, he was a distinguished visiting professor of Sino-American relations at the Yenching Academy of Peking University in the People's Republic of China (PRC).

After serving as a Rajawali senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a visiting professor of Peking University's School of International Studies, Dr. Mendis served as a distinguished visiting professor of Asian-Pacific affairs at Shandong University in China as well as an associate-in-research of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science.

Dr. Mendis served as a distinguished senior fellow and affiliate professor of public and international affairs in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. He is an adjunct professor of geography and geoinformation science at GMU.

Prof. Mendis taught MBA/MPA as well as international trade and American foreign policy courses at the University of Minnesota, University of Maryland, and Yale University before joining the U.S. Department of State, where he served under Secretaries 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 and reappointed by Secretary John Kerry. He has worked in, and traveled to, more than 130 countries, visited all 50 states in the United States, and visited all provinces of China.

Earlier in his life, Dr. Mendis worked at the Minnesota House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, and the United Nations. After his government service (in the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy and State), Dr. Mendis returned to academia, where he served as the vice president of the Osgood Center for International Studies and as a foreign policy visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C.

He is an alumnus of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and the University of Sri Jayewardenepura's Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce. Dr. Mendis was elected to serve on the board of the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Alumni DC Council in Washington (2010-14) and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Harvard International Review. He has established the Millennials Award for Leadership and Service at Harvard University, the Edward Burdick Legislative Award at the University of Minnesota, and the Dr. Patrick Mendis Prize at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Prof. Mendis has authored more than 150 books, journal articles, government reports, and newspaper columns. His books include, Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a New Pacific World Order (2013), Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the American Empire (2010), and TRADE for PEACE: How the DNA of America, Freemasonry, and Providence Created a New World Order with Nobody in Charge (2009).

A naturalized US citizen, the former American Field Service (AFS) exchange scholar from Sri Lanka to Perham High School considers Minnesota his "birthplace" in America. Dr. Mendis and his family live in the Washington, DC, area.