Why build fences when we can build bridges?

Speakers:
Lourdes Melgar, CIS Wilhelm Fellow and Mexico's former deputy secretary of energy for hydrocarbons.

Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan, former Mexican Ambassador to the US (2007-2013). He is a Non Resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the USC Annenberg Public Diplomacy School.

Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan is an international strategic consultant based in Washington, and the former Mexican Ambassador to the US (2007-2013). He is a non resident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the USC Annenberg Public Diplomacy School.  He is a digital diplomacy pioneer, the first Ambassador accredited to the US to use Twitter in an official capacity. He writes regular columns for Univision Noticias and Mexico City’s El Universal newspaper, as well as oped’s in US media. A career diplomat, he received the rank of Career Ambassador in 2006. He served in the Mexican Foreign Ministry as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, Chief of Policy Planning, and Consul General to New York City, among other positions. In 2006, he joined the Presidential Campaign of Felipe Calderón as Foreign Policy Advisor and International Spokesperson. He then led the foreign policy Transition Team. He holds a B.A. in International Relations from El Colegio de México and an M.A. in U.S. Foreign Policy from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar and Ford Foundation Fellow. Decorated by Spain and Sweden, he has received numerous awards and honorary degrees in recognition of his diplomatic achievements. He sits on several boards, including the Americas Society, the Inter-American Dialogue, and the National Immigration Forum. He has been a Distinguished Diplomat in Residence at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a Pacific Leadership Fellow at UCSD. He was included in the List of Global Leaders of Monocle magazine, and was on the list of the 300 Most Influential Mexican Leaders for five years in a row.

Co-sponsored by the MIT Center for International Studies and MIT Mexico