Ambassador Julie Chung is currently a Distinguished Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative in the Scrowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the South Asia program. She is also a Senior Advisor for the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University and Advisory Council member.
An experienced American diplomat who led key foreign policy and national security initiatives across the Indo-Pacific and Latin America for three decades, she has been an effective leader on expanding trade, defense cooperation, and trusted technology. As U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 2022-2026, she strengthened maritime security in close coordination with Quad partners, including the handover of a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter which was deployed for Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea. She served as Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs from 2019-2021 where she coordinated multinational sanctions against the Maduro regime in Venezuela and launched new partnerships between Taiwan and countries in the region. In September 2020, she testified at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Advancing U.S. Engagement and Countering China in the Western Hemisphere.
Prior to that, she was director of the Office of Japanese Affairs reinforcing the Extended Deterrence Dialogue and implemented joint sanctions on North Korea. She traveled to North Korea numerous times during 2001-2003 as a key member of the Korean Economic Development Organization negotiations with North Korea. She also served as Special Assistant on Asia to Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage in 2003. Her other postings include Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Japan, China, Colombia, and Iraq as Chief of Staff for the coordination of civilian-military foreign assistance.Ambassador Chung holds a B.A. from the University of California San Diego and an M.A. from Columbia University. She is the recipient of the Presidential Rank Award for leading repatriation efforts of American citizens during Covid and the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award.