Directors of the Foreign Service Institute
NOTE TO READERS
Updates to the Principal Officers and Chiefs of Mission database are currently suspended. For information about the Department’s current and recent leadership, we recommend visiting the Department of State homepage’s Biographies of Senior Officials and List of U.S. Ambassadors.
Notice posted on January 12, 2024.
Last
updated March 14, 2024.
Congress authorized the Foreign Service Institute in the Foreign Service Act of 1946 (P.L. 79-726; 60 Stat. 1018). The Foreign Service Institute was established on Mar 13, 1947, to furnish Foreign Service Officers with training throughout their careers. It superseded a Foreign Service School established in 1924 to provide basic instruction in foreign policy questions and consular operations to newly appointed Foreign Service officers. All Directors of the Foreign Service Institute have been designated by the Secretary of State, and hold rank equivalent to an Assistant Secretary of State.
- William Percy Maddox (1947–1949)
- Harry C. Hawkins (1950–1952)
- Norman Burns (1952–1953)
- Harold Boies Hoskins (1955–1961)
- Carl Walther Strom (1961–1962)
- George Allen Morgan (1962–1965)
- George Venable Allen (1966–1968)
- Parker Thompson Hart (1969)
- Howard E. Sollenberger (1971–1976)
- George Stoney Springsteen Jr. (1976–1980)
- Paul Harold Boeker (1980–1982)
- Stephen Low (1982–1987)
- Charles William Bray III (1987–1988)
- Brandon Hambright Grove Jr. (1988–1992)
- Lawrence Palmer Taylor (1992–1995)
- Teresita Currie Schaffer (1995–1997)
- Ruth A. Davis (1997–2000)
- Katherine Hubay Peterson (2001–2005)
- Ruth A. Whiteside (2006–2013)
- Nancy E. McEldowney (2013–2017)
- Daniel Bennett Smith (2018)
- Edward John Bash (was Acting Director, Jan 1954-Mar 1955.)