Marc Ostfield

Marc Ostfield

Richard J. Henley and Susan L. Davis Dean

On January 26, 2026, Ambassador (ret.) Marc Ostfield will join the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at The City College of New York as the Richard J. Henley and Susan L. Davis Dean. In this role, Ostfield will oversee CCNY’s largest division, which encompasses the social science departments, as well as the core leadership development and public service programs at the College. Ostfield’s work will advance the School’s commitment to lift leaders, shift power, and transform society — in Harlem, in New York, and around the world.

Ostfield brings to this role decades of experience in diplomacy, public policy, and education, leading organizations and programs that empower individuals to become agents of positive change — values that closely align with the Powell School’s mission. As U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Paraguay from 2022-2025, he led a 230-person embassy with six U.S. Government agencies, overseeing all bilateral relations and public engagement.  

Since 2002, he has taken on a wide range of leadership roles in the State Department, including as the Department’s Ombudsman; Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Foreign Service Institute, responsible for the training of U.S. Government foreign affairs professionals in everything from diplomacy to languages to leadership; Director of the Office of Policy and Global Issues in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs; Senior Foreign Affairs Officer for the Office of Science and Technology Cooperation; and Senior Advisor on Bioterrorism, Biodefense, and Health Security in the Office of International Health and Biodefense.

From 1987 to 2002, he created and led large-scale United States Agency for International Development, Centers for Disease Control, and other donor-funded HIV/AIDS and global health programs in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Asia, and worldwide. 

He has received numerous professional, academic, and community service honors, including the Presidential Rank Award; the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center’s Meritorious Unit Citation; multiple U.S. Department of State Superior Honor and Meritorious Honor Awards; the Diplomacy Fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education; and the President’s Volunteer Service Award as a volunteer firefighter since 1995.

Ostfield received his PhD in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. He speaks Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and French.