Ambassadors Up Close: Studying International Affairs Near Embassy Row in Washington, DC
On October 1, over 100 students gathered in the SIS Founder's room to hear from Ireland’s ambassador to the United States, H.E. Geraldine Byrne Nason.
“The difference between sitting in a classroom, learning the important theory about international affairs and diplomacy and meeting someone like me, is that you get to see under the covers,” explained Ambassador Byrne Nason. “You get to hear what it means being in a negotiation room, listening for what the real views of your colleagues—your opponents, sometimes—are. And it also allows you to see, I think, the variety of what the practical side of diplomacy is.”
The event is part of a signature SIS series called “Ambassadors Up Close” that regularly brings sitting and former ambassadors to campus for a panel discussion and Q&A with students.
AU’s campus is nestled in a quiet part of DC, off Massachusetts Avenue, NW, a stretch of road better known as Embassy Row. “Our Washington, D.C., location is an incredible asset,” said Garret Martin, co-director of SIS’s Transatlantic Policy Center, which helps organize many of the events. “It makes a difference for ambassadors and our diplomats that they only need to travel a few miles to come to our wonderful campus.” The premise of this event series is simple: take advantage of that proximity by inviting experienced diplomats into the room with students for a real conversation on the big international questions of the day.
“Our university is in a very unique place in the country,” said event attendee Lucas Dunn, SIS/BA ’30, “where, especially for an international studies student, I have the opportunity to meet these people that aren't just experts in their fields, but they constantly are involved in international politics—like the ambassador from Ireland.”
The Origin Story
Ambassadors have long been part of the fabric of SIS, not just as guests but as faculty. Piper Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Mongolia and head of the U.S. Mission to ASEAN, currently serves on SIS’s faculty and chairs the Department of Foreign Policy and Global Security. She was there when the Ambassadors Up Close series was started in fall 2022 with a conversation among the three former U.S. ambassadors who were then teaching.
Since then, Campbell has remained heavily involved with the series. with Martin and fellow center co-director and SIS professor Michelle Egan. Since its launch, SIS has hosted more than 20 events under the Ambassadors Up Close banner, exploring issues ranging from Nordic security and the Western Balkans to U.S. relations with Vietnam and Iraq.
For Campbell, the series encapsulates the variety of what a career in diplomacy can look like.
“When I was starting out as a diplomat, I sort of thought that there was probably one path for diplomacy,” she recalled. “Something that I learned during my career is that diplomacy is incredibly varied. In almost every assignment, I became a specialist on something new or different—whether that was cultural issues when I was serving in Cambodia related to the archeology and upkeep of the Angkor temples or negotiating on nuclear safety protocols when I was head of the U.S. mission to ASEAN.”
Getting Up Close
Preceding many of the public panels is a coffee chat series hosted by the Ask a Diplomat student club. The chats provide an opportunity for a small group of students to meet with the featured diplomat in a more intimate, often student-led discussion. That is how, in addition to attending the Ambassadors Up Close event, Dunn—only a month into his time at SIS—got to be the moderator for Ambassador Byrne Nason’s coffee chat.
“Something that stuck with me was how she made clear that a lot of events that you'd hear about on the news—whether it was the Israel-Palestine conflict or Irish reunification—while there's, like, a flashy news story about it, she kind of brought to light that there's a lot more intricate issues involved with those topics,” he said.
Emily Forrest, SIS/BA ’27, was another student in attendance for H.E. Byrne Nason’s event. She works closely with Martin and Egan as the student director general of Ask a Diplomat.
“There is this really cool phrase that [Ambassador Byrne Nason] referred to in both the pre-chat and the main event about unity through diversity,” she said. “I thought it was a very strong point that even with as much tension and political uncertainty as there is right now, it is still important to be very unified.”
“The one big takeaway that I want from our students when they come to such events is to really have a deep exposure to different international perspectives,” said Martin. “Why do other countries approach or think about big international challenges in a way that is sometimes similar or quite different from what they might hear from the United States government?”
Ask a Diplomat hosts multiple coffee chats per semester, along with activities such as embassy visits. Past Ambassadors Up Close guests have included ambassadors from Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and Thailand, among others.
“I don't think that people really realize how much they can get out of these events as a whole,” said Juan Bielza Gimenez, SIS/MA ’27, a frequent attendee of the series. “For example, now with the Graduate Student Council, we're able to just, like, go and knock on the doors of these embassies and ask them, ‘Hey, would you mind if we brought someone to speak at our campus?’ Or, ‘Hey, would you mind if we use your beautiful embassy as a venue for one of our student events?’ And it's such a useful and enriching part of the experience of being here in D.C. because it really gets you to have these wonderful conversations that may even lead to future work experiences."
Bielza Gimenez really stresses speaking to the staff around the ambassadors after the panels. At a previous event with the Spanish and Portuguese ambassadors, he was able to parlay an encounter with the Spanish embassy’s public diplomacy officer into a group visit for students to the Embassy of Spain.
“We were able to go there, meet some diplomats, talk about the importance of public diplomacy, the mission of the Embassy of Spain to the United States,” Bielza Gimenez said. “Also, we got some of our students to get to know about the different programs that they have, to get involved with the different departments of the embassy. It was an overall amazing experience.”
Whether it’s broadening your perspective or making a professional connection, experiences like these are all part of what make studying in D.C. and at SIS special for a student of international affairs. It's not just a matter of proximity, but the intimate spaces our community provides for students to connect to experts and practitioners—and the opportunity for students to lead in those spaces.
“Even if it doesn't land in a job opportunity,” said Bielza Gimenez, “it will leave you with a great experience and with a lot of knowledge that you can later apply to your own personal experience here.”
To attend our next Ambassadors Up Close event, watch our SIS Events page or subscribe to our weekly events bulletin.