Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian, the founding director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University and a United States diplomat who has served in the administrations of eight presidents, has been named to the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The announcement was made today by the Honorable Thomas H. Kean, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Vartan Gregorian, its president.
“We are honored that Edward P. Djerejian has accepted the trustees’ invitation to join the corporation’s board,” said Governor Kean. “Ambassador Djerejian is one of the United States’ most distinguished diplomats, having served his country from the Kennedy administration to the Clinton administration. In his current role as director of the prestigious Baker Institute, he brings his vast experience and considerable wisdom to helping guide public policy.”
Commenting on Ambassador Djerejian’s appointment, Vartan Gregorian said, “Edward P. Djerejian is universally admired and respected by foreign policy professionals of many nations and all political affiliations. He is not only a distinguished diplomat, but an individual of great honor and integrity. His dedication to American ideals, his efforts to achieve peace in challenging settings, and his commitment to public service resonate deeply with Andrew Carnegie’s vision of doing real and permanent good in this world.”
Edward P. Djerejian is a leading expert on national security, foreign policy, and the complex political, security, economic, religious, and ethnic issues of the Middle East and South Asia. Prior to his nomination by President Bill Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Djerejian served both President George H.W. Bush and President Clinton as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and President Ronald Reagan and President Bush as U.S. Ambassador to the Syrian Arab Republic. He was Special Assistant to President Reagan and Deputy Press Secretary for Foreign affairs in the White House. Ambassador Djerejian was selected by Secretary of State Colin Powell to chair a congressionally mandated bipartisan Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World. Former President Clinton invited him to serve as an advisory board member of the Clinton Global Initiative’s working group on Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict in 2006. Djerejian also served in 2006 as Senior Adviser to the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan panel mandated by Congress to assess the situation in Iraq. He has played key roles in the Arab-Israeli peace process, the U.S.-led coalition against Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, the successful effort to end the civil war in Lebanon, the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon, and the establishment of collective and bilateral security arrangements in the Persian Gulf. He is the author most recently of Danger and Opportunity: An American Ambassador's Journey Through the Middle East (Simon & Schuster Threshold Editions, September 2008).
Ambassador Djerejian is the founding director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, a nonpartisan public policy think tank. Since its inception in 1993, the institute has produced independent, innovative research on domestic and foreign policy issues with a focus on providing decision makers in the public and private sectors with relevant and timely policy assessments and recommendations. Under Djerejian’s leadership, the Baker Institute has become a recognized leader in policy and scholarly debate on issues such as energy, tax policy, Middle East conflict resolution and health care.
Djerejian has been awarded the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State's Distinguished Honor Award, the President's Meritorious Service Award, the Anti-Defamation League’s Moral Statesman Award, and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. He is also a recipient of the Association of Rice Alumni’s Gold Medal, the group’s most prestigious award, for his service to the university. In 2011, Ambassador Djerejian was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.