Ambassador John E. Lange - Senior Fellow, Global Health Diplomacy, United Nations Foundation

Ambassador John E. Lange (https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-people/john-e-lange/) is Senior Fellow, Global Health Diplomacy, at the United Nations Foundation, a charitable organization headquartered in Washington, DC, that supports the United Nations and its activities.Show more

Ambassador Lange has extensive leadership experience in global health issues and longstanding involvement in United Nations affairs, focusing on issues related to global health security and the work of the World Health Organization. He also serves as the Chair of the Leadership Team of the Measles & Rubella Initiative.

Ambassador Lange worked from 2009-2013 at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he engaged in high-level advocacy with governments and international organizations to advance the Gates Foundation’s global health and development goals in Africa. In 2012, he was the founding Co-Chair of the Polio Partners Group, the broad group of stakeholders in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and served in that role for a four-year term.

Ambassador Lange had a distinguished 28-year career in the Foreign Service at the U.S. Department of State, where he was a pioneer in the field of global health diplomacy and a leader in pandemic preparedness and response. He served as the Special Representative on Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2006-2009); Deputy Inspector General; Deputy U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator at the inception of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; and Associate Dean for Leadership and Management at the Foreign Service Institute, where he directed the Senior Seminar, the federal government’s highest-level civilian/military joint training program. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Botswana and Special Representative to the Southern African Development Community (1999-2002), where he oversaw operations of seven U.S. Government agencies and made HIV/AIDS his signature issue.

Ambassador Lange headed the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as Charge d'Affaires during the August 7, 1998, Al-Qaeda bombing, for which he received the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award for "skilled leadership" and "extraordinary courage." From 1991 to 1995, while at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Ambassador Lange managed U.S. humanitarian and refugee assistance channeled through international organizations. He also had tours of duty in the State Department Bureaus of African Affairs, Western Hemisphere Affairs and Management in Washington and at U.S. Embassies in Lomé, Togo; Paris, France; and Mexico City, Mexico.

Prior to joining the diplomatic service in 1981, he worked for five years at the United Nations Association of the USA in New York.

Ambassador Lange is the author of a case study in the book, Negotiating and Navigating Global Health: Case Studies in Global Health Diplomacy (2012), that describes the international negotiations on sharing of pandemic influenza viruses and access to vaccines when he led the U.S. delegation. He has delivered lectures on pandemics and other global health issues at Chatham House, London; the Council on Foreign Relations, New York; and numerous other venues. He has written numerous journal and magazine articles and blogs on the Dar es Salaam Embassy bombing, leadership in a crisis, humanitarian assistance, pandemic preparedness and response, and other global health issues.

At the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Ambassador Lange co-chaired the committee that produced the consensus report, Investing in Global Health Systems: Sustaining Gains, Transforming Lives; served as a member of the Forum on Public-Private Partnerships for Global Health and Safety; and served on the committee that produced the consensus report, A Strategic Vision for Biological Threat Reduction: The U.S. Department of Defense and Beyond.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ambassador Lange is a member of the Global Health Institute’s Board of Visitors and the International Division’s External Advisory Board. He is a member of DACOR (Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired); the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs; the American Society of International Law; and the American Foreign Service Association.

Ambassador Lange is a "distinguished graduate" of the National War College (M.S. in national security strategy, 1996); a graduate cum laude of the University of Wisconsin Law School (J.D., 1975); and a graduate “with distinction” of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (B.A. in political science, 1971). In 1978, he studied public international law at The Hague Academy of International Law. He was admitted to the bar in Wisconsin (1975) and New York (1979). He speaks English and Spanish fluently and has working proficiency in French. He is married and has one daughter.