Ambassador Piper Campbell is the Director of the ASEAN Studies Initiative and a Hurst Sr Professor at American University’s School of International Service, serving as administrative director for the Global Governance, Politics and Security program, as well as the United States Foreign Policy program. Ambassador Campbell has previously taught at the National Defense University’s National War College.
Ambassador Campbell’s areas of expertise include East Asia and navigating multilateral organizations. These two specialties combined when she had the opportunity to lead the U.S. Mission to ASEAN based in Jakarta from June – December 2018. In that capacity, she served as “Senior Official” in formal sessions of the East Asia Summit, ASEAN regional Forum and the Lower Mekong Initiative. Leading a multi-agency team involved wide-ranging activities from securing agreement with ASEAN Defense Ministers on holding the first U.S.-ASEAN military exercise to opening a summit of Young South East Asian entrepreneurs.
Earlier, Ambassador Campbell served as Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Ulaanbaatar from 2012-2015, in which capacity she supported negotiations on the development of Mongolia’s extractive industries and agreement on a $350 million U.S.-Mongolia Millennium Challenge Compact. She also was Consul General in Basrah, Iraq from 2011-2012, as the U.S. military withdrew.
Ambassador Campbell retired from the State Department in April 2019, with the rank of Minister Counselor.