Karl Stoltz

Karl Stoltz is a guest lecturer in SMPA. He previously taught at GWU as the visiting State Department Public Diplomacy Fellow from 2018 to 2019. Karl retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in October 2024 after 38 1/2 years as a diplomat, serving in Europe, Africa, East Asia, the Pacific, and Washington, D.C.

From 2021 to 2024, Karl was acting Deputy Coordinator and Senior Advisor at the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC), which focused on countered information manipulation and interference by America's foreign adversaries. Karl also worked in Washington D.C. as Director of the Office of Citizen Exchanges (ECA/PE/C), as Director for Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP/PD), and as regional exchanges coordinator in the same region at USIA.

Overseas, Karl was deputy chief of mission, the second senior-most position, at the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 2013 to 2016, and in Yangon, Myanmar, from 2005 to 2008. He also served as Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia, from 2019 to 2021, as Country Public Affairs Officer (CPAO) in Pretoria, South Africa, from 2010 – 2013, and as CPAO in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 2001 to 2005. Karl was also the Cultural Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 1998 to 2001, during that country’s transition to democracy, and he was Public Affairs Officer in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, from 1992 to 1995. Karl also served in Moscow from 1990 to 1992, working with Russian media during the transition from the USSR to Russia. He began his career in Wellington and Christchurch, New Zealand, where, among other duties from 1987 to 1989, he served as official spokesperson for the U.S. Antarctic Program.

Karl has a B.A. in Russian Studies and History from the University of Virginia and has done graduate work at Middlebury University in Vermont and at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Karl worked for Capital-Gazette Newspapers in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Karl is married to Tania Garry, originally of Wellington, New Zealand. They have one son, Ryan, and a 3-year-old cat which has a Ph.D. in human psychology and a M.Sc. in litter box management.