Diana Villiers Negroponte
Monday, October 28, 2013
Topic: Beyond Hugo Chavez: Venezuela and its Neighbors Confront New Challenges
Diana Negroponte is a nonresident senior fellow with the Latin America Initiative under the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. Her work is devoted to research and writing on Latin America, with particular emphasis on security issues in Mexico and Central America. Previously she was a senior scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace. She received her doctorate from Georgetown University with a dissertation that examined efforts to make peace at the end of the Cold War in El Salvador.
Before coming to Brookings, Dr. Negroponte practiced law with Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, specializing in international trade and aviation matters. She also played an active role with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Mexico during the negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement. She continues her legal interests with her current research and writing on judicial and police reform in Latin America.
Diana Negroponte has spent a lifetime devoted to social and development issues, particularly in the developing world. In Uganda, she taught blind children mathematics and music. In Honduras, she worked actively with refugees, displaced by the civil wars in two neighboring countries, as well as the teaching of illiterate adults and the provision of medicines for children with cancer. In Mexico, she built low income homes in city slums with Habitat for Humanity International and initiated a program for the artistic development of people with disabilities, Very Special Arts in Mexico. In the Philippines, she dedicated time to micro-credit programs throughout the country, as well as building homes with Habitat for Humanity.
She has remained involved in the area of social development, serving on the boards or advisory councils of various U.S. non-profit organizations dedicated to these causes.
Listen to this Presentation
Click on the play arrow below to listen to this presentation now. You may need to click twice on the arrow to start the audio.