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News Release

Last modified: Friday, April 9, 2010

British ambassador to U.S. to speak at Indiana University

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 9, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the United Kingdom's ambassador to the United States, will visit Indiana University Bloomington next week to give a lecture and meet with students, faculty members and university officials.

Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the U.S. since October 2007, will speak on "The 21st Century World: Europe's Role" at 6 p.m. Thursday (April 15) in the Tudor Room of the Indiana Memorial Union. The lecture is free and open to the public.

He will have lunch with IU President Michael A. McRobbie and IU faculty members and will meet in the afternoon with students from the Hutton Honors College, the Wells Scholars program and the Political and Civic Engagement program. On Friday, he is scheduled to meet in Indianapolis with Indiana elected officials.

Sheinwald joined the British Diplomatic Service in 1976 and has served in Brussels, Washington and Moscow and in a wide range of policy positions in London. For four years before becoming U.S. ambassador, he was foreign policy and defense adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair and head of the Cabinet Office Defense and Overseas Secretariat. He also has served as U.K. ambassador and permanent representative to the European Union, Europe director for the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office and head of the U.K. Political and Institutional Section in Brussels.

He was born in 1953 and was educated at Harrow County Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford. He is married and has three sons.

As ambassador to the U.S., Sheinwald has pursued a strong interest in higher education and met frequently with leaders of American universities. On his blog, "UK in the USA," he wrote last month about a British Council initiative to expand U.K.-U.S. partnerships in education and research. "These partnerships are a key part of the special relationship between our two countries, and matter hugely to both London and Washington," he wrote.

Indiana University has numerous connections with institutions in the United Kingdom, especially Oxford and Cambridge universities, including programs in information technology, life sciences, philosophy, optometry, anthropology and library and information sciences. The U.K. has been the No. 2 destination for Indiana University students in study-abroad programs.

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