Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow

Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow assumed the presidency of the Institute of the Americas on June 1, 2003. Upon completion of 34 years in the State Department, he retired as America's highest ranking diplomat, one of only three people to hold the personal rank of Career Ambassador.

During his Foreign Service career, Amb. Davidow focused much of his efforts on improving relations with Latin America. He served in increasingly senior positions in the U.S. embassies in Guatemala, Chile, and Venezuela, and then later returned to Venezuela as ambassador from l993-1996. From 1996 to 1998, he was the State Department's chief policy maker for the hemisphere, serving in the position of Assistant Secretary of State. He then served as ambassador to Mexico from 1998 to 2002. Initially appointed to that position by President Clinton, he was asked to remain in his post for an additional 18 months by President Bush.

Early in his Foreign Service career, he served as a congressional staff aide in a program organized by the American Political Science Association. In that capacity, he organized in 1979 the first congressional hearings on the possibility of establishing a free trade area for North America. On another occasion, he spent an academic year at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs where he wrote a book, later published by Harvard, on negotiation. After leaving Mexico in September 2002, he returned to Harvard to become a Visiting Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the David Rockefeller center for Latin American Studies. During the 2002-03 academic year, he worked extensively with undergraduate and graduate students and wrote a book on U.S.- Mexican relations. El oso y El Puercoespin: The United States and Mexico was published in Mexico by Casa Editorial Grijalbo. The U.S. and Mexico: The Bear and the Porcupine is also available in English from Markus Weiner Publishers.

Amb. Davidow graduated from the University of Massachusetts (BA, l965) and the University of Minnesota (MA l967). He also did postgraduate work in India (l968) on a Fulbright travel grant. He holds an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Massachusetts (2002). He has been married since 1969 to the former Joan Labuzoski.