Edward S. Walker Jr.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Israel and the UAE

Ambassador Edward (Ned) Walker is a professor of government at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York concentrating on foreign policy and the Middle East.  Until the summer of 2006, Ambassador Walker was the president and chief executive officer of the Middle East Institute, a non-governmental organization based in Washington, DC. Before assuming this position in 2001, Walker worked for five months in the first George W. Bush administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, a position he had previously held during the second Clinton Administration. His diplomatic career included an early assignment as Chief of the Political Section in Damascus. 

In successive years (1984-1999) he served as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, and as Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt, and then Ambassador to Israel.

He holds a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Hamilton College and a Master's degree in International Relations from Boston University. He has studied both Arabic and Hebrew and has a reading knowledge of French. He is the recipient of various US government and other honors including distinguished honor awards from the Pentagon and the State Department. 

Most recently, he was named a Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Global Political Theory at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY and has served as an Adjunct Scholar  at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.