Diana Mary Villiers Negroponte (born August 14, 1947) is an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
-born
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
trade
Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market.
An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...
lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...
, Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
adjunct professor
An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and
the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...
of international relations at the
Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University, and author of several books whose professional name is ''Diana Villiers Negroponte''. She is the wife of
John Negroponte
John Dimitri Negroponte (; born July 21, 1939) is an American diplomat. He is currently a James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is a former J.B. and Maurice C. Sha ...
, the former
United States Deputy Secretary of State
The deputy secretary of state of the United States is the principal deputy to the United States Secretary of State, secretary of state. The current deputy secretary of state is Wendy Ruth Sherman, serving since April 2021 under United States Secre ...
and former U.S.
Director of National Intelligence
The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a senior, cabinet-level United States government official, required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to serve as executive head of the United States Intelligence Commu ...
.
Biography
A descendant of
Charles II's mistress
Barbara Villiers
Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, Countess of Castlemaine (née Barbara Villiers, – 9 October 1709), was an English royal mistress of the Villiers family and perhaps the most notorious of the many mistresses of King Charles II of Eng ...
, Duchess of Cleveland, and a great-great grandchild of
George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon
George William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, (12 January 180027 June 1870) was an English diplomat and statesman from the Villiers family.
He served as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs three times as part of a distinguished ...
, who served as Queen Victoria's three-time Foreign Secretary, she was born in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. Her father was
Sir Charles Villiers, a merchant banker, who was the first director of the International Reconstruction Corporation and chairman of
British Steel Corporation
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
from 1974 until 1988; her mother was Sir Charles's second wife, the former
Countess Marie Josée de la Barre d’Erquelinnes and wartime Belgian resistance fighter.
After studying law at The American University
Washington College of Law
The American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL or WCL) is the law school of American University, a Private university, private research university in Washington, D.C. It is located on the western side of Tenley Circle in the Tenleyto ...
, she practiced international trade law with
Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. Later, she studied for a PhD at the
Universidad Iberoamericana
The Ibero-American University ( es, Universidad Iberoamericana), also referred to by its acronym ''UIA'' but commonly known as ''Ibero'' or ''La Ibero'') is a private, Catholic, Mexican higher education institution, sponsored by the Mexican provi ...
and Georgetown University. Her doctoral thesis became the basis for her first book, ''Seeking Peace in El Salvador: The Struggle to Reconstruct a Nation at the End of the Cold War'' (2001). The manuscript was translated into Spanish and published in El Salvador as ''En Busca de la Paz en El Salvador: La lucha por Reconstruir una Nación al Final de la Guerra Fría'' (2016). While writing, she participated in events at the Center for the Study of Diplomacy and taught the history of Latin America at Georgetown University and later at Fordham University.
Upon returning to Washington D.C., she joined the
United States Institute of Peace
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American Federal government of the United States, federal institution tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. It provides research, analysis, and training to individual ...
and contributed to the drafting of its historical origins. From there, she was invited to join the international affairs department at the
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...
, where she wrote about Central American migration and edited both ''The End of Nostalgia: Mexico Confronts the Challenges of Global Competition'' (2013) and ''New Directions in Brazilian Foreign Relations.''
Her latest book, published in 2020, was written while she was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. ''Master Negotiator: James A. Baker, III's Role at the End of the Cold War,'' analyzes the events that took place from 1988-1992, such as the
Tiananmen Square protests
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
,
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
, the repelling of Saddam Hussein from Iraq, the
Madrid Peace Conference, and the achievement of peace in Central America.
On a voluntary basis, Diana Negroponte has supported environmental projects in Honduras, micro-enterprise lending in the Philippines, and
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), generally referred to as Habitat for Humanity or Habitat, is a US non-governmental, and nonprofit organization which was founded in 1976 by couple Millard and Linda Fuller. Habitat for Humanity is a Ch ...
home-building in Mexico City and New York as well as feeding homeless populations in Washington D.C.
She remains a trustee emeritus of
Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
, emeritus board member of
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), generally referred to as Habitat for Humanity or Habitat, is a US non-governmental, and nonprofit organization which was founded in 1976 by couple Millard and Linda Fuller. Habitat for Humanity is a Ch ...
's
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
chapter, chair of the Wilson Council at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washi ...
, and member of the Women's Foreign Policy Group and serves on the Advisory Board of the School of Global Policy & Strategy at
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
.
She has appeared on CNN, NBC,
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
Washington Journal
''Washington Journal'' is an American television series on the C-SPAN television network in the format of a political call-in and interview program. The program features elected officials, government administrators and journalists as guests, an ...
, and PBS Newshour
Diana Negroponte
PBS Newshour and has written articles for national periodicals. She currently publishes articles for the Global Europe Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
The Negropontes have five adopted children from Honduras: Marina, Alexandra, John, George and Sophia. They celebrate three grandchildren.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Negroponte
1947 births
Living people
Diana Villiers Negroponte
Fordham University faculty