Donna Welton

Diplomat in Residence

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Global and International Studies

Bard College's Diplomat in Residence, Donna Welton, is a retired Ambassador with over thirty years of public service as a foreign service officer, first with the United States Information Agency and then with the U.S. Department of State. Over her career she was posted to Japan multiple times, and to Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Republic of Korea, Finland, and Afghanistan. She also served as senior advisor in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in Washington, negotiating security agreements and overseeing demining and peacekeeping support. Her academic field is Asian Art and Archaeology. Ambassador Welton worked as a curator of Japanese art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the late 1990s. She holds degrees from Yale, Princeton, and the Army War College.