Karl Stoltz

Karl Stoltz is the GW Visiting State Department Public Diplomacy Fellow for the 2018 – 19 academic year. He joined the Foreign Service in 1986 and has served in Washington, D.C., Europe, Africa, East Asia and the Pacific.

Before joining GW's Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, Karl served as director of the State Department Office of Citizen Exchanges, located in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs from 2016 to 2018. He led a 50-person team overseeing the State Department’s cultural and artistic, sports, professional fellow and high school youth exchanges worldwide, including major exchanges of young entrepreneurs from Latin America, the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.  

Karl also served in Washington, D.C. as director for public diplomacy in the State Department Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2008 to 2010 and as regional exchanges coordinator in the same region from 1995 to 1997.

Overseas, Karl was deputy chief of mission, the second-ranked position, at two U.S. embassies — in Copenhagen, Denmark from 2013 to 2016 and in Yangon, Myanmar from 2005 to 2008. In the former, he was also responsible for U.S. relations with Greenland and the Faroe Islands, two regions closely linked to global climate change issues today. In the latter, he helped guide the U.S. through a time of severe regime repression and fostered the democratic forces that are playing a greater role in the country today.

Karl served overseas as minister-counselor for public affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa from 2010 – 2013 and the embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 2001 to 2005. In South Africa, he helped establish the African Regional Media Hub, engaging journalists across the continent, and several Young African Leaders programs. In Malaysia, he launched six American Corners in provincial centers and a new Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program that has brought hundreds of American college graduates to Malaysian schools to teach students in remote locations.

Karl was also cultural attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia from 1998 to 2001, during that country’s transition to democracy. He was a public affairs officer in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea from 1992 to 1995, where he helped manage U.S. relations with the nations of Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, and in Wellington and Christchurch, New Zealand from 1987 to 1989, where among other duties he served as the spokesperson for the U.S. Antarctic Program.

His first appointment as a Foreign Service officer was as an assistant press attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia from 1990 to 1992, working primarily with Russian media during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Karl will return to Moscow in summer 2019 to serve as minister-counselor for public affairs, working closely with the U.S. ambassador to Russia to manage media, educational and cultural relations with the government and people of Russia.

Karl has a B.A. in Russian Studies and History from the University of Virginia and has done graduate study at Middlebury University and the National Foreign Affairs Training Center. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Karl worked for Capital-Gazette Newspapers in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. 

He is married to Tania Garry, originally of Wellington, New Zealand. They have one son, Ryan, who is an undergraduate at Wake Forest University, and a 15-year-old cat who has a Ph.D. in human psychology and a M.Sc. in litter box management.