Michael McClellan named Diplomat in Residence

August 25, 2009

Michael McClellan has been selected as the Ford School’s Diplomat in Residence for the 2009-2010 academic year. McClellan is a Senior Foreign Service Officer and a 25-year veteran of U.S. State Department.

The Ford School is one of only sixteen schools selected by the State Department to host a Diplomat in Residence, giving our students access to a current, active Foreign Service officer.

McClellan joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1984 and has served in many countries including: Yemen, Egypt, Russia, Kosovo, Germany, Ireland, Iraq, and Ethiopia. As the first diplomat from any country assigned to Kosovo, McClellan opened a diplomatic office and, with the Rochester Institute of Technology, organized and opened the American University in Kosovo. In Iraq he served on the Baghdad Provincial Reconstruction Team, a civilian-military inter-agency effort that provided the primary connection between U.S. and coalition partners, and the provincial and local governments of Iraq’s provinces. In Ethiopia, McClellan’s work focused on “Faith Communities Outreach” as a means of confidence-building and conflict resolution between Ethiopia’s Christian and Muslim communities.

McClellan’s book, “Monasticism in Egypt: Images and Words of the Desert Fathers,” was published in 1998 by the American University in Cairo Press. His photos from this monastery project have been published extensively in North American media and video productions.

McClellan earned a BA in Political Science and Journalism from the University of Louisville, an MA in Photojournalism and International Relations from Syracuse University, and a completed PhD studies (ABD) in Communications and Government/Press Relations at Indiana University.

[Learn more about the Diplomat in Residence program]