Diplomat-in-Residence (DIR) Program

Each year, the U.S. Department of State assigns Senior Foreign Service Officers to the position of Diplomat in Residence (DIR) at certain colleges and universities throughout the United States. The DIR program is central to the effort to recruit the best and brightest to represent America's rich diversity to the world. 

Edward J. Wehrli

Ed Wehrli has been Diplomat-in-Residence at the University of Oklahoma (OU) since August 2009.  Before coming to OU, Mr. Wehrli served as Consul General and Counselor for Consular Affairs at the US Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica from 2006 to June 2009. Mr. Wehrli began his career as a Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State as a Vice Consul in Jamaica in 1978 and went on to serve most of his career abroad in the course of ten overseas assignments, primarily in Asia.  A member of the Senior Foreign Service since 2002, he has risen through the ranks from Vice Consul to Minister Counselor.

From 1983 onwards, Mr. Wehrli has served as the Consul General and/or senior US Consular officer in six cities, starting with Shanghai, China; and including Dhaka, Bangladesh; Berlin, Germany; Islamabad, Pakistan; and Bangkok, Thailand, where he was concurrently the Regional Consular Officer for the United States Embassies in Burma, Laos, and Cambodia.  He has also served in the Office of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the Department of State in Washington, D.C.

A native of Roanoke, Illinois, Mr. Wehrli has a B.A. in History (magna cum laude) from Bradley University and did graduate work at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He and his wife, Rose, have two adult children.