Alyson L. Grunder
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
Alyson Grunder is the Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for Policy in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). She oversees the Bureau’s Alumni Affairs, Collaboratory, Public-Private Partnerships, Policy and Evaluation divisions as well as ECA’s Cultural Heritage Center, and ensures that ECA programs are aligned with and advancing White House and Department of State foreign policy goals.
A four-time public affairs officer at overseas posts, DAS Grunder was Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at U.S. Embassy Baghdad from 2014-2015, leading the Mission’s strategic communications and public diplomacy outreach efforts in the wake of the 2014 incursions into Iraq of the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). She has also been the public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Kampala, Uganda, as well as at the U.S. Consulate in Montreal, Canada. A New Yorker, DAS Grunder has served two tours at the New York Foreign Press Center, including as Director from 2011-2014. From 1999-2001, she was a press officer at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, serving as Acting Spokesperson on 9/11.
A recipient of multiple State Department superior and meritorious honor awards, DAS Grunder joined the foreign service in 1991 and has the rank of Minister Counselor. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in American Studies.
