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Ambassador Carolyn Curiel

Carolyn Curiel has been a United States Ambassador, Senior Speechwriter and Special Assistant to the President of the United States, and an influential journalist at top news media organizations. Before returning in October 2008 to her alma mater, Purdue University, she served as a member of the Editorial Board of The New York Times, writing opinion pieces on politics and a range of foreign and domestic issues. 

She led planning of Purdue’s first public policy institute while Chief of Staff in the Office of the President of the University.  Purdue University’s Board of Trustees approved the Global Policy Research Institute in December 2010, and the next month Ambassador Curiel joined the full-time faculty in the Department of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts as a Clinical Professor.

In her current position, Ambassador Curiel established the multidisciplinary Project Impact, tailored to bring experiential learning about the working of news media, government and an informed public to Purdue students.  In addition to teaching classes, as Director of Project Impact, she has brought Washington leaders and newsmakers to campus for interaction with students, faculty and staff. She is taking the first class from Purdue to Washington in May 2011 for high-level visits at the White House, Capitol Hill and State Department, as well as to top media organizations, including The New York Times Washington Bureau.

In 1997, the United States Senate unanimously confirmed her as U.S. Ambassador to Belize. There she advanced American interests on a wide range of bilateral and regional issues, including security, environment, border disputes and trade and economic cooperation. She delivered long-stalled treaties and agreements on extradition, legal collaboration and increased counter-narcotics cooperation. She accompanied American and combined regional military forces on training exercises and war games in the jungles, waters and mountainous regions of Belize. She coordinated disaster preparedness and response to major hurricanes.

As White House speechwriter, she concentrated on President Clinton’s “opportunity agenda” — education, health, environment and race relations. The President credited her for writing what many have called his most memorable speech, on every American’s right to equal opportunity.
Ambassador Curiel joined The Times Editorial Board in 2002. Another New York paper, The Observer, noting her role as the director of The Times’ elections endorsements, called her “the most powerful person in New York politics.”
In previous positions, she was an Emmy-nominated producer and writer for Ted Koppel at ABC News Nightline, head of the Caribbean Division for United Press International, and an editor at The Washington Post. Throughout her career, she has received numerous honors for her work as a trailblazer and mentor.
Purdue University awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2008.  The College of Liberal Arts previously honored her with a Distinguished Alumni Award. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, and she is a member of the somewhat secretive Judson Welliver Society of former White House speechwriters.

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