The Volunteer Who Became the U. S. Ambassador to Indonesia

The Volunteer Who Became the U. S. Ambassador to Indonesia, by Jerry Norris (Colombia 1963-65)

Joseph R. Donovan attended Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, earning a B. S. Degree in Foreign Service in 1993. After graduating, he served for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Seoul, South Korea. He then went on to earn an M. A. in national security studies from the Naval Post Graduate school in 1993.

He would spend most of his professional career as a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) dealing with East Asia. His early assignments with the U. S. Department of State included stops in Taiwan, China, South Korea and Qatar. In 1997, he was named Chief of the political/military unit in the Embassy in Tokyo. His next posting was in Taipei, Taiwan as the political section chief in the American Institute in Taiwan., which represents U. S. interests in that nation. He returned to Washington in 2003 as Director of the Office of China, Hong Kong, and Mongolia Affairs.

After returning to Tokyo in 2005, his next assignment as a FSO was as Deputy Chief of Mission in the U. U. S. Embassy. During his tenure he had to help manage the reaction to a U. S. Marine being accused of raping a woman in Okinawa.

In 2008, Joseph was named Consul General for Hong Kong and Macau. The following year he was brought home to serve as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the East Asia and Pacific Bureau. He had a short stint as an Associate Professor at the National War College in 2011 and 2012 before being named foreign policy adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 2014, he was named Managing Director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Washington office, a post he held until he was nominated by then-President Barack Obama as the U. S. Ambassador to Indonesia in 2017, serving until 2020.

Joseph’s professional career was emblematic of all those who have devoted their lives to representing this country abroad as U. S. Foreign Service Officers, meriting him a Profile in Citizenship.