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Patrick Mendis is an award-winning diplomat, educator, author, philanthropist, and executive in US government service in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

He is currently a presidential advisor to the National Security Education Board at the US Department of Defense, an appointment by the Biden-Harris White House. The Obama administration appointed him to serve two terms as a commissioner to the National Commission for UNESCO at the US Department of State. The Bush White House also appointed Dr. Mendis to serve on the US Department of Agriculture’s Graduate School Board while he was teaching at the USDA Graduate School. He was later awarded the Outstanding Leadership and Service Award and other commendations by US government agencies.

Adopted by Minnesotans when the civil war broke out in his native country of Sri Lanka, Dr. Mendis has become a notable alumnus of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. As a faculty, he also held Harvard appointments as a non-resident associate-in-research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies as well as a Rajawali senior fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. A fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, Dr. Mendis is a former distinguished senior fellow and affiliate professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University as well as a visiting foreing policy scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Alternating his long academic career that started with the University of Minnesota in the 1980s, Dr. Mendis also served as an American diplomat and a military professor at NATO and the Indo-Pacific Commands during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations — holding various positions in the US Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, and State. For his diplomatic service and inter-agency leadership, he received the Meritorious Honor Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, and the Certificate of UN Negotiation and Diplomacy from the US Department of State.

He is currently serving as the inaugural Taiwan chair and distinguished visiting professor of international relations at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow as well as a distinguished visiting professor of transatlantic relations at the University of Warsaw in Poland. Dr. Mendis, who served as a Taiwan fellow for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Republic of China (ROC), was concurrently a distinguished visiting professor of global affairs at the National Chengchi University in Taipei. He was also a distinguished visiting professor of culture and diplomacy at the Chinese Culture University of Taiwan. Before arriving in Taiwan, Dr. Mendis served as a distinguished visiting professor of Sino-American relations at the Yenching Academy of Peking University in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and received the first International Confucius Award by the National Confucius Research Institute of China in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius.

Dr. Mendis has authored more than 250 books, government reports, newspaper columns, and journal articles. His publications appeared in the Columbia Journal of International Affairs, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Harvard International Review, Yale Journal of International Affairs, SAIS Review of International Affairs, The National Interest, China-US Focus, South China Morning Post, The Globalist, and The Diplomat, among many others.

Public Service

Dr. Mendis began his academic career at the University of Minnesota after gaining legislative and international experience by serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, and the United Nations. His late mentor and friend Prof. Harlan Cleveland—former US ambassador to NATO and the founding dean of the Humphrey School—encouraged Dr. Mendis to accept the offer to join the US Department of Defense through the University of Maryland to teach American servicemembers in the NATO and Indo-Pacific Commands. He taught at every major US military base in England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Turkey, and South Korea. For the highest teaching accomplishments among all faculty members, Dr. Mendis was bestowed with the Stanley J. Drazek Teaching Excellence Award.

At the US Department of State, he chaired the federal government’s interagency policy working groups and coordinated American science and technology policy with the White House and other technical agencies. During his chairmanship, Dr. Mendis authored the Supplementary Handbook on the C-175 Process: Routine Science and Technology Agreements, established the US Embassy Science Fellows Program, and advised three US Delegations to the United Nations. As the secretariat director of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Dr. Mendis managed many US educational and cultural exchange programs—including the Fulbright, Humphrey, and Muskie programs.

After being elected as the vice chairman of the late Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Open Forum, Dr. Mendis led seminars and workshops to generate alternative foreign policy perspectives and broaden the American foreign policy debate. His research interests include American foreign and trade policy, the Founding Fathers of the United States, international security affairs, Sino-American relations, the US Indo-Pacific strategy, the Taiwan Strait issue, and the United Nations.

Throughout his career in government service, he remained dedicated to education and continued to teach part-time MBA/MPA and executive graduate courses at the University of Maryland, the George Washington University, the USDA Graduate School, and the US Foreign Service Institute at the George Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center. He also taught graduate online and face-to-face courses in international relations through Norwich and Troy Universities to American servicemembers and US civil servants at the Fort Belvoir Amy Base in Virginia and the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.

Academic Contributions

An alumnus of the Harvard Executive Leadership Program at the Kennedy School of Government, Dr. Mendis holds a PhD in geography and applied economics from the University of Minnesota, an MA in public policy and international affairs from the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and a BSc in business administration and economics (summa cum laude) from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

After many years in government service, Dr. Mendis returned to academia to serve as a visiting foreign policy scholar at the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the vice president of academic affairs at the Osgood Center for International Studies. While at SAIS, he published two books: Trade for Peace: How the DNA of America, Freemasonry, and Providence Created a New World Order with Nobody in Charge (foreword by Prof. J. Brian Atwood, University of Minnesota) and Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the American Empire (foreword by Prof. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, George Washington University).

When he later joined George Mason University (GMU) as a distinguished senior fellow and affiliate professor of public and international affairs at the Schar School of Policy and Government, Dr. Mendis authored his most recent book, Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a New Pacific World Order (foreword by Prof. Jack Goldstone, GMU). This book was translated into Mandarin Chinese and published in the PRC.

When he served as a visiting professor of economics and public policy at the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea Program, Dr. Mendis penned a regular column for The Asian American Press based on his intercultural voyages around the world. Subsequently, he authored a book Glocalization: The Human Side of Globalization as if the Washington Consensus Mattered (foreword by Sir Arthur Clarke, King’s College, London). From the proceeds of the sales of his books, Dr. Mendis established the tsunami scholarships in Sri Lanka—matched by financial contributions made available by the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke who resided on the island.

Dr. Mendis has held a variety of other positions, including: a distinguished senior fellow at the Synergia Foundation (Bangalore, India), an honorary research fellow at the University of the West Indies (Kingston, Jamaica), a senior fellow at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies (Taipei), a senior fellow and academic advisor at the Pangoal Institution (Beijing), a distinguished visiting scholar at the National Confucius Research Institute of China (Qufu), a Socrates Society fellow at the Aspen Institute (Washington), a science and diplomacy fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Washington), a Coolidge research fellow at Columbia University, a Sasakawa fellow (Japan), and a Twenty-First Century Trust fellow at Oxford University.

His other international research and teaching activities comprise service as a distinguished visiting professor at the Universities of Anhui, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Peking, Shandong, Tongji, Wuhan, and Zhejiang. Moreover, Dr. Mendis has lectured at more than 25 universities as well as national and provincial academies in China. He has visited every province of China, and for his research on ancient Chinese culture and philosophy, Dr. Mendis was honored with China’s International Confucius Award by PRC.

Earlier in his career, he served as a visiting professor of economics and management at Leningrad State University and Moscow State University in the former Soviet Union, a program sponsored by the Eisenhower Foundation. Dr. Mendis twice served as a visiting professor of global affairs and UN studies at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University.

He was an advisor to the Harvard International Review, an editor of The Public Manager, and a counselor to the Harvard Kennedy School Alumni DC Council. Dr. Mendis also served as a consulting advisor to The Encyclopedia of the Sri Lankan Diaspora, which included writing the chapter on the United States, at the National University of Singapore.

Philanthropic Activities

Hailing from Sri Lanka, Dr. Mendis is a former American Field Service (AFS) high school exchange scholar to Perham, Minnesota. He considers Perham his “birthplace” in America. Prior to becoming a naturalized US citizen, he represented the Government of Sri Lanka as its first Youth Ambassador to the United Nations and received the UN Medal for the International Year of the Youth.

He still serves as the founding chairman of the board of advisors at the Educate Lanka Foundation, a Maryland-based micro-scholarship program for Sri Lankan students. At the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, he endowed the Patrick Mendis Prize in the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce in 1994. This annual financial award is given to the most outstanding undergraduate for academic excellence and extracurricular leadership.

For Perham High School students, he established the Johnson-Mendis Scholarship at the Minnesota State Community and Technical College in memory of his American AFS family. He also endowed the Edward Burdick Legislative Award for graduate students at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School in honor of his late American “father,” mentor, and friend at the Minnesota House of Representatives. At Harvard University, Dr. Mendis established the Millennials Award for Outstanding Leadership and Service for undergraduate students majoring in international relations and journalism.

Honors and Awards

For his academic leadership, government service, and philanthropic activities, Dr. Mendis was honored with the University of Minnesota’s Alumnus of Notable Achievement Award. Other distinctions and recognitions include the Hubert Humphrey Outstanding Leadership Award, the University of Minnesota President’s Award for Outstanding Leadership and Service, and the Harold Stassen Award for United Nations Affairs.

Dr. Mendis was named among the 13 World Famous People born in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka Foundation in California honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also the first recipient of the UNESCO Award, the winner of the Best Commander of the Military Cadet Corps of Sri Lanka, and the General Sir John Kotelawala Defense University Award in Sri Lanka.

He is listed in Who’s Who Among American Universities and Colleges, Who’s Who of Asian Americans, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World. In April 2023, Who’s Who in America presented him with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Mendis has either lived, traveled, or worked in more than 140 countries and visited all 50 states and territories of the United States. He resides in Washington, DC.