After his government service at the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Defense, and State, Dr. Patrick Mendis returned to academia. He taught MBA courses in international trade policy and global management at the University of Maryland’s UMUC Graduate School of Management & Technology and served as a visiting professor of economics and public policy at the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea program. 

He is currently serving as the vice president of academic affairs at the Osgood Center for International Studies and a visiting scholar of the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He is an adjunct professor of the MA in Diplomacy program at Norwich University.

Prior to joining the U.S. State Department, Dr. Mendis was a graduate military professor through the University of Maryland for the U.S. Department of Defense in the NATO and the Pacific Commands, for which he received the Maryland’s Stanley J. Drazek Teaching Excellence Award. He taught MBA/MPA and undergraduate international relations courses at every major military installation in England, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Turkey. As a visiting professor, Dr. Mendis also taught in China through the University of Maryland and in the former Soviet Union through the University of Minnesota.

After his teaching tour in Asia and Europe with the U.S. Defense Department, Dr. Mendis became an American diplomat at the U.S. Department of State in 2000.  He served as the secretariat director and a special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, a foreign affairs officer for science and technology, and the vice chair of the Secretary's Open Forum under Secretary Colin Powell.  He received the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award and the Benjamin Franklin Award for his policy coordination with the White House, interagency leadership and authoring of the handbook on international science and technology agreements, the management of international educational and cultural programs, and UN negotiations on sustainable development during the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

He later served as a consultant and economist at the Center for Global Security Research of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. During his government service, he also taught at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute and the Graduate School of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dr. Mendis served as a governing board member of the USDA Graduate School during 2003-07, an appointment by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.  He later received the USDA Graduate School Outstanding Service Award.

After his teaching tour with the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea program, Dr. Mendis authored a book, Glocalization: The Human Side of Globalization as If the Washington Consensus Mattered (2nd edition, 2007), and instituted a number of tsunami scholarships and a peace prize in Sri Lanka from the proceeds of the sales of his books.  He also established a micro-loan program in Sri Lanka and supported a network of micro-loan recipients around the world through Kiva (see: http://www.kiva.org/lender/patrickmendis).

Before joining the Maryland faculty in 1997, he served as a lecturer in international relations and a visiting scholar in applied economics at the University of Minnesota since 1990. Dr. Mendis also worked at the Minnesota House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, and the United Nations.

For his eclectic contributions and accomplishments, he was recognized with numerous honors, including the Hubert H. Humphrey Alumni Award for Outstanding Leadership, the University of Minnesota President’s Leadership and Service Award, the Governor Harold Stassen Award for United Nations Affairs, the 21^st Century Trust Fellowship at Oxford, and the Socrates Fellowship at the Aspen Institute.  

An alumnus of the Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Dr. Mendis earned his BS degree in business administration and economics (First Class Honors) from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in 1983, an MA in international development and foreign affairs from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in 1986, and a PhD in geography/applied economics from the University of Minnesota in 1989.  He completed his postdoctoral teaching and research at Columbia and Yale.

Dr. Mendis is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, a life member of the Society for International Development, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (St. Paul-Minneapolis Committee) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  He serves on the editorial boards of Energy & Environment in the United Kingdom, The Public Manager in the United States, and listed in Who’s Who in America.

A travel enthusiast, Dr. Mendis has traveled to, and worked in more than 70 countries and visited all 50 states in the U.S.  He also enjoys hiking, swimming, and watching the sunset with his family.  His American-Scandinavian wife – an AFS exchange student from Minnesota to Japan – and two teenage children are residing in Virginia but they all consider Minnesota their home.  Dr. Mendis is a former AFS exchange scholar from Sri Lanka to Minnesota and graduated from Perham High School in 1979.

Sources:

·   Norwich University

          http://grad.norwich.edu/diplomacy/directorscorner/01_24_05/index.html

·   University of Maryland

          http://www.umuc.edu/fyionline/february_03/fyionline4.html

·   University of Minnesota

         http://www.alumni.umn.edu/Voices__Patrick_Mendis__a_scholar_and_a_diplomat.html

·   Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Mendis

·   Osgood Center for International Studies
http://www.osgoodcenter.org/contact.htm

·   The Calvert Foundation http://www.calvertfoundation.org/news_and_media/junction_newsletter/200801.html