Editor’s note: At its meeting earlier this month, TIRF welcomed Mr. Joe Bookbinder to its Board meeting in Washington, DC.
Mr. Joseph Bookbinder began working as the Director of the Office of English Language Programs in August, 2017.
Mr. Bookbinder joined the United States Foreign Service in 1992. He is a member of the Senior Foreign Service and has had overseas assignments in New Delhi, Chengdu, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taipei. His most recent overseas assignment was as the Chief of the Public Diplomacy Section at the American Institute in Taiwan from 2013 to 2017.
Mr. Bookbinder has also had three domestic State Department assignments. He was in charge of the East Asia portfolio at the Washington Foreign Press Center from 2003 to 2006. He was the Policy Officer and Cultural Coordinator in the Office of Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2006 to 2008. Most recently, he served on the State Department’s Board of Examiners as an Assessor from 2012 to 2013.
Before joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Bookbinder worked at Harvard Magazine and, subsequently, taught English and American History at two universities in China from 1986 to 1988.
Mr. Bookbinder was born in Long Island, New York. He attended Harvard University, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in history. He speaks Chinese and French. He and his wife Min have two sons.
