Patrick Mendis

[7] He is currently a presidential advisor to the US National Security Education Board, an appointment by the Biden White House, as well as the inaugural Taiwan chair and distinguished visiting professor of international relations at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

[9] Previously, he was a distinguished visiting professor of Sino-American relations at the Yenching Academy of Peking University in the People's Republic of China (PRC).

[17] Earlier in his life, Mendis worked at the Minnesota House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, and the United Nations.

[21] Dr. Mendis has authored more than 100 journal articles, government reports, newspaper columns, and several books, including most recently, Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a New Pacific World Order (2013),[22] Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the American Empire (2010),[23] and TRADE for PEACE: How the DNA of America, Freemasonry, and Providence Created a New World Order with Nobody in Charge (2009).

[24] Patrick Mendis was born in the medieval capital of Polonnaruwa in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and grew up in Minnesota, USA.

At the age of 18, he won one of the nine AFS scholarships among over 100,000 applicants in Sri Lanka and attended high school in Perham, Minnesota.

During his tenure, Mendis worked with the late Regents Professor Vernon Ruttan and authored a book, Human Environment and Spatial Relations in Agricultural Production and four staff papers published by the University of Minnesota's Department of Applied Economics.

Mendis was assigned to manage the Middle East and Asian issues and coordinate with President Ronald Reagan's White House.

(Mendis also worked at the World Bank and served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of State after representing the Government of Sri Lanka at the UN, where he received the UN Medal for the IYY).

In Minnesota (1986–96), Mendis served as the President of the Society for International Development, the Vice President of the United Nations Association of the United States of America, a public speaker at the Minnesota International Center and the Founding Chairman of The Saint Paul Foundation's Asian-Pacific Endowment for Community Development.

[34] After completing his two teaching tours in Europe and Asia, Mendis joined the U.S. Department of State in 2000 as a foreign affairs officer to serve under Secretary Madeleine Albright in Washington, D.C.

Mendis was also elected by both State and USAID civilian and foreign service employees to serve as the vice chairman of Secretary Colin Powell's Open Forum.

[35] Ambassador Lehman and Professor Mendis worked on a number of national security projects, including one involving the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the science-fiction writer, who lived in Sri Lanka.

Sir Clarke, a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, wrote the foreword for Mendis' book on Glocalization.

[37] Mendis also served as an Uhuru 'Freedom' Fellow at the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the governing board of the USDA Graduate School, an appointment by the George W. Bush administration.

[42] For more than five years, Professor Mendis served as an international adviser to The Encyclopedia of Sri Lankan Diaspora at the National University of Singapore and authored the chapter on the United States.