Nirupama Rao
- Distinguished Fellow, India
Ambassador Nirupama Menon Rao is a distinguished fellow on India at the Atlantic Council. She currently serves on the advisory council of the Women in Public Service Project; is a member of the boards of IIM Bangalore, ICRIER, Nrityagram, the Museum of Art and Photography, and the American India Foundation; and serves as an independent director on the boards of ITC, KEC International, JSW Steel, and Adani Ports.
A retired Indian foreign service officer, Rao served as India’s foreign secretary from 2009 to 2011 and ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2013. She was India’s first woman spokesperson at the Ministry of External Affairs, its first woman high commissioner to Sri Lanka, and its first woman ambassador to China. Following her diplomatic career, she held academic appointments at Brown University, Columbia University, the University of California San Diego, The New School, and the Wilson Center, focusing particularly on India-China relations and South Asian diplomacy. She is currently working on a book on India-China relations, Telling it on the Mountain: India and China, 1949–1962.
Rao holds an honorary Doctor of Letters from Pondicherry University and has received the Vanitha Ratna Award, Fellowship of Peace Award, and Kalinga Karubaki Literary Award, among other honors.