The former Executive Director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Vivian S. Walker is Practitioner in Residence at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Chair of the Foreign Service Journal Editorial Board, the co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy, Adjunct Professor in Georgetown University’s MSFS degree program, and a Faculty Fellow at the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. Previously, she taught at the Central European University's School of Public Policy, the National War College in Washington, D.C., and the National Defense College of the UAE.

As a career Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State, she rose to the senior rank of Minister Counselor. She twice served as a Deputy Chief of Mission (Croatia and Armenia), twice as an Office Director (Southeastern European Affairs and the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy for Europe), a Public Affairs Officer (Kazakhstan, with coverage of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan), a Cultural Affairs officer (Tunisia) and an Information Officer (Haiti).

Other assignments include a two-year professorship in strategic studies at the National War College, a yearlong assignment as the State Department’s Regional Border Coordinator in Afghanistan, and a fellowship on the US Atlantic Council, where she led the first interagency discussion on public diplomacy in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Dr. Walker has published and lectured extensively on the practice of public diplomacy in complex information environments.  She graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and earned her doctorate in English language and literature from the University of Chicago.  She speaks French, Russian and Croatian.