The Public Diplomacy Council of America honors achievement in U.S. public diplomacy through awards programs that recognize exemplary contributions to the field. Since 1993, PDCA and its predecessor organizations have recognized the outstanding work conducted by members of the Foreign Service, Civil Service, Locally Employed Staff (LES), employees of binational centers and American Corners, and EducationUSA advisers.
We also recognize U.S. organizations that facilitate public diplomacy and mutual understanding. Since 1993, the Public Diplomacy Association of America has presented individual and group awards that draw valuable recognition to innovative public diplomacy successes around the globe.
These awards:
- Honor the achievements of practitioners.
- Promote public understanding of, participation in, and support for U.S. public diplomacy.
- Assist practitioners, students, and scholars of public diplomacy to keep up-to-date with new developments in the field of global communications.
The two awards programs are:
Awards for Achievement in Public Diplomacy
This was the original awards program that has been presented since 1993. Video of the program recognizing the 2024 recipients is available here.
For information on the 2025 iteration of this program, click here.
Award for Public Diplomacy Leadership by a Senior Officer
This award was presented for the first time in 2024. The video of the program recognizing Ambassador Bernadette Meehan is available here. The video of the program recognizing Deputy Assistant Secretary Camille Dawson is available here.
The PDCA Award for Public Diplomacy Leadership by a Senior Officer is open to Chiefs of Mission and Principal Officers overseas and to Assistant Secretaries and Deputy Assistant Secretaries in domestic assignments. Officers in all bureaus are eligible.
For information on the 2025 iteration, click here.
2025 Awards for Achievement in Public Diplomacy
By Domenick DiPasquale
The Public Diplomacy Council of America (PDCA) announced the two 2025 winners of its annual award for excellence in public diplomacy. They are:
- The Northstar team in the State Department’s Office of Global Public Affairs, for the design, development, and deployment of the Northstar AI-powered global media analytics tool.
- The U.S.-Saudi Higher Education Partnerships Forum, developed by the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, markedly enhanced U.S.-Saudi education and research partnerships, positively impacted bilateral relations and helped support American colleges and universities.
PDCA President Joel Anthony Fischman praised the two award recipients for their innovation and creativity in furthering the practice of U.S. public diplomacy. “Both sets of recipients demonstrate the creative use of diplomacy in advancing U.S. interests and model the opportunities available to other public diplomacy practitioners in the State Department. We are pleased to recognize them and thank them on behalf of our members for their efforts.”
PDCA promotes excellence and honors achievement in professional practice, academic study, and advocacy for public diplomacy. Its 500 members include U.S. diplomats, scholars, rising professionals, and retired Foreign Service and Civil Service officials interested in the public dimension of U.S. statecraft and those involved in educational and cultural exchange.
The awards program dates to 1993. More information on the program and past recipients is available here. A Zoom program recognizing the recipients of the 2025 awards will take place this summer.
Northstar Team
The Northstar team has significantly advanced the State Department's public diplomacy goals by harnessing cutting-edge AI technology to enhance media monitoring capabilities, drive time- and cost-saving efficiencies, and improve situational awareness.
The Northstar application does so by enabling the Department to efficiently track real-time news as it occurs, a critical function for ensuring timely and responsive media engagement. It achieves this by providing AI translation of more than 500,000 news articles and social media posts per day, AI-generated media summaries and data visualizations about Department social media trends, and tailored analytics dashboards for real-time insights on topics, countries, and regions.
Indicative of the application’s usefulness, former Under Secretary Liz Allen estimated that Northstar, designed to streamline labor and overlapping contracts throughout the Department, has saved 180,000 annual labor hours and freed up significant amounts of contract dollars.
U.S.-Saudi Higher Education Partnerships Forum
Education is a fundamental pillar of the U.S.-Saudi partnership, underpinning bilateral political and economic relations and providing critical financial support to U.S. colleges and universities via the Saudi government’s large foreign scholarship program. However, the Saudi Ministry of Education’s restructuring of that program has steadily reduced the number of Saudi students at U.S. universities over the past 10 years.
To ensure that the United States remains Saudi Arabia’s educational partner of choice, Embassy Riyadh’s cultural affairs office and representatives from the Institute of International Education collaborated on a strategy of sustained strategic engagement with senior Saudi Ministry of Education officials as well as U.S. and Saudi universities. The effort culminated in the first-ever U.S.-Saudi Higher Education Partnerships Forum that brought together U.S. university officials with Saudi government officials and educators for three days of site visits, roundtables, and partnership development.
Among its accomplishments, the Forum has led to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) outlining both countries’ commitment to strengthening higher education and scientific collaboration. The MOU has led to the creation of the first-ever Fulbright program in Saudi Arabia for U.S. graduate students. In addition, Saudi Arabia has committed to increase the number of Saudi students in the United States by 2,000 a year over the next five years, which will provide U.S. universities an additional 160 million dollars of annual revenue.
2024 Awards for Achievement in Public Diplomacy
Four Exemplars of Importance of Public Diplomacy to American Foreign Policy
By Domenick DiPasquale
Innovative work to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives across a variety of critical transnational issues – climate change, disinformation, migration – characterizes the four recipients of PDCA’s 2024 awards for achievement in public diplomacy.
In compiling their outstanding records of accomplishment, all four demonstrated excellence in team leadership, advanced organizational skills, creative use of social media, and sustained energy and drive.
The four recipients so honored by PDCA this year are:
Wren Elhai, Spokesperson, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) at the Department of State
Patricia Muñoz, Strategic Content Specialist, U.S. Consulate General Ciudad Juarez
Public Affairs Section, U.S. Embassy Bratislava, consisting of four American officers and 10 locally-employed staffers led by Public Affairs Officer Tamara Sternberg-Greller
Josh Lustig, Public Diplomacy Officer for Emerging Voices, U.S. Embassy Seoul
"These award winners represent both domestic and foreign employees of the State Department who work creatively and energetically to further U.S. objectives and help foreign audiences understand our country," noted Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne, co-chair of the PDCA Awards Committee. "They also reflect the fact that public diplomacy overseas includes both Americans and Locally Employed Staff members who work hard to defend American values and represent the United States."
2024 Awards for Public Diplomacy Leadership by a Senior Officer
Two senior officers in the U.S. Department of State have been chosen as the first recipients of awards for Public Diplomacy leadership.
The Public Diplomacy Council of America (PDCA) has named U.S. Ambassador to Chile Bernadette M. Meehan and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Camille P. Dawson as 2024 recipients of its Awards for Public Diplomacy Leadership by Senior Officers.
Ambassador Meehan was recognized for her leadership of the U.S. celebration of the bicentennial of U.S.-Chile relations and the response to the 50th anniversary of the Pinochet coup that derailed democracy in the country for 30 years. PDCA noted that Meehan guided a public diplomacy strategy that cut across all U.S. agencies represented at the mission in Santiago.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dawson was recognized for integrating public diplomacy strategies across the range of foreign policy objectives in support of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. PDCA noted that Dawson also built effective partnerships between the State Department and DOD military commands, leading to better PD coordination.
PDCA President Joel Fischman praised the two recipients. They represent the terrific leaders the State Department has attracted to guide the U.S. effort to help foreign audiences understand U.S. society and values and its foreign policy goals. Their leadership and use of the tools needed to explain our country ensure that our national security interests are front-and-center in all aspects of the work of America’s diplomats, according to Fischman.
PDCA is a nonprofit association of practitioners and scholars that promotes excellence in the professional practice, academic study, and advocacy for public diplomacy. Its 500 members are drawn from U.S. Foreign Service Officers, scholars, and other practitioners.
The awards were created to recognize individuals in the Department of State who provide broad leadership in the area of public diplomacy. PDCA was especially interested recognizing individuals who lead whole-of-government efforts to advance U.S. national interests.
Meehan and Dawson will be recognized at a webinar later this year.
2023 Awards for Achievement in Public Diplomacy
Excellence in Public Diplomacy Takes Many Forms
Working under wartime conditions in Kyiv to demonstrate continued U.S. support for Ukraine against Russian aggression. Engaging young audiences in Türkiye through video gaming. Orchestrating the bicentennial of diplomatic relations with Mexico. Bringing America to the remote hinterlands of Albania.
The 2023 recipients of the PDCA awards for excellence in public diplomacy have advanced American foreign policy objective though their innovative use of technology, stellar management and leadership skills, outside-the-box thinking, and sheer hard work and perseverance.
The four recipients are:
- Public Diplomacy Section, Embassy Kyiv
- Onur Dizdar, Cultural Affairs Assistant, Consulate General Istanbul
- Monica Sarmiento, Strategic Public Engagement Specialist, Embassy Mexico City
- Mobile American Corner Team, Embassy Tirana
These awards reflect the extraordinary efforts of America’s diplomats and their professional staffs to share our country’s story and explain the policies and motivations of the United States. Under difficult circumstances and constrained resources, public diplomacy professionals demonstrate creativity and commitment to getting the message out that America is dedicated to the ideals on which our country was founded, noted PDCA co-president Joel Fischman.
Fischman continued: The men and women we recognize, and the people who nominated them, understand that a consistent and committed engagement with friends and foes alike is necessary to bring about our vision of a peaceful and fair and prosperous world. We thank all of the diplomats, their staffs, and the support personnel and volunteers throughout the United States who share America’s story. I want especially to call attention to the fact that two of the recipients of awards this year are locally-employed staffers from the diplomatic posts. Their selections help highlight the fact that our diplomatic efforts overseas involve staff from the countries involved. We are indebted to them as well as to their American colleagues.
2021 Awards for Achievement in Public Diplomacy
Covid-19 pandemic notwithsanting, public diplomacy practitioners across the globe continued to engage their local audiences creatively on key policy issues, as clearly evidenced by the winners of the 2021 awards for achievement in public diplomacy.
Whether showcasing U.S. support for democracy and human rights, combating trafficking in persons, encouraging entrepreneurship, or crafting calibrated messaging on immigration policy, the 2021 award winners employed strategies ranging from old school printed flyers to cutting-edge social media campaigns to communicate effectively with foreign publics.
The four winners of the 2021 awards were:
- Public Affairs Section, U.S. Consulate General Hong Kong & Macau
- Ms. Sohini Das, Public Engagement Specialist, U.S. Consulate General Kolkata
- Public Affairs Section, U.S. Embassy Algiers
- Allyson Hamilton-McIntire, Assistant Information Officer, U.S. Embassy Mexico City
Public Affairs Section, U.S. Consulate General Hong Kong & Macau
Confronted with the Chinese Communist Party’s harsh crackdown on democracy and human rights in Hong Kong, as well as attempts to implicate the United States in the resulting political unrest, the Consulate’s public affairs section (PAS) launched a campaign on multiple media platforms to push back against Beijing’s repressive measures. It was accomplished by highlighting positive USG support for Hong Kong and its autonomy, spotlighting Chinese government efforts to restrict Hong Kong’s fundamental freedoms, and reinforcing shared U.S.-Hong Kong values through expanded people-to-people ties.
Sohini Das, Public Engagement Specialist, U.S. Consulate General Kolkata
Combatting human trafficking is a priority for U.S. diplomatic missions in India. With eastern India a major trafficking hub, Public Engagement Specialist Sohini Das at the U.S. consulate in Kolkata has developed a multi-layered approach to the problem. The cornerstone of this initiative is the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Conclave that brings together key players to address new and ongoing challenges. Targeted activities throughout the year culminate in the annual conclaves, which have produced significant collaborations leading directly to positive legislative and judicial results.
Public Affairs Section, U.S. Embassy Algiers
Algeria faces a significant youth bulge in its population, high unemployment, and a stagnant economy dominated by inefficient state-run companies. In response to this challenging environment, the Embassy public affairs section produced and broadcast a Shark Tank-style reality television show called Andi Hulm (I Have a Dream), to promote the importance of entrepreneurship and to support U.S. businesses in Algeria. The 60 original contestants competed in challenges related to sales and marketing, business operations, product design, management, and teamwork. The ten-episode show, which was set at American businesses operating in Algiers, resulted in the crowning of a champion who received a cash prize and went on a State Department-funded incubation exchange in the United States.
Allyson Hamilton-McIntire, Assistant Information Officer, U.S. Embassy Mexico City
The Central American migrant surge at the U.S. southern border posed major challenges for Embassy Mexico, in particular the need to communicate different messages to those who had pending U.S. asylum cases and to the much larger number who did not. Assistant Information Officer Allyson Hamilton-McIntire took on the daunting high priority task of developing a finely nuanced communication strategy on migration policy aimed at these two very different audiences. For the thousands of migrants with pending asylum cases, Hamilton-McIntire filled the existing information vacuum with detailed guidelines, timelines, and procedures on the asylum process.