USA

Ambassador Dean R. Thompson (Honorary Chair)

Ambassador Dean R. Thompson is the United States Ambassador to Nepal and presented his credentials to President Bidya Devi Bhandari on October 21, 2022.

Prior to his arrival in Nepal, Ambassador Thompson served as Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, overseeing U.S. policy and relations with the countries in the region. He is a member of the Senior Foreign Service and has more than 25 years of experience in U.S. diplomacy.

Ambassador Thompson previously served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has also served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest, Romania, U.S. Consul General in Kolkata, India, and the Chief of the Economic and Commercial Affairs section of the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Ambassador Thompson’s other overseas service includes tours at the U.S. Embassies in Paraguay and Bangladesh. While stationed in Washington, Ambassador Thompson has led several teams in direct support of the U.S. Secretary of State and served as Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff, the Deputy Director of the Department’s 24-hour Operations Center and the Director of the Department’s Crisis Management Staff.

Ambassador Thompson has a Masters of Public Management from the University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs and a Masters of National Security Studies from the U.S. National War College. He is married to Jane Krill Thompson, an early childhood special education administrator.

GARRETT WILKERSON (BOARD CHAIR)

Garrett Wilkerson is the Public Affairs Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal. His previous overseas assignments include U.S. missions in Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Korea, and The Bahamas. Originally from the state of Oregon, he has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Texas A&M and a master’s degree in political communication from the University of Kent at Brussels, Belgium.

Erica Alexander (Treasurer)

Erica Alon Alexander is a public diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer from Memphis, Tennessee, currently serving as the Cultural Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal. She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Global Studies from Georgia State University and taught English in Daejeon, South Korea after graduation. In 2021, she started her time with the State Department after receiving the Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellowship and attended The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where she earned a Master’s in Global Communication. During her fellowship, she interned for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Public Affairs Section at Embassy Hanoi. In her free time, Erica enjoys volunteering for her sorority’s headquarters on the Board of Directors and working on creative projects like sewing and writing.

MEGHAN NALBO

Meghan W.T. Nalbo is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Nepal. She brings over a decade of experience in governance and development in Asia, the majority of which is focused on Nepal’s political transition.Meghan was a Fulbright Fellow in Nepal in 2003-2004, where her research focused on indigenous political and cultural identities and rights with the backdrop of Nepal’s ten-year civil conflict.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Meghan was a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) where she most recently served as director of the Democracy and Governance office at USAID in Nepal. Her work at USAID spanned over nine years during which she held a variety of positions, including as USAID’s Asia regional coordinator for the Global, Regional Policy Team, where for two years she was the technical lead in the Center for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance in Washington, DC and as a program officer in Bangladesh.

Jason Seuc

Jason Seuc joined USAID Nepal in August 2021 as the Economic Growth Office Director. Mr. Seuc’s career has focused on balancing economic prosperity with environmental sustainability. He prioritizes partnership with governments and the private sector to achieve development impact for women, youth, and marginalized people. In Nepal, he leads a portfolio that strengthens market systems for agriculture, improves the country’s trade and competitiveness, and advances locally led development in marginalized communities. Mr. Seuc has also served in Indonesia, El Salvador, and Bangladesh where he led low carbon and climate resilient development, biodiversity conservation, agriculture, water/sanitation, and clean energy programs.

Nepal

Dr. Mukta S. Lama Tamang

Dr. Mukta S. Lama Tamang is an anthropologist and teaches at Central Department of Anthropology, Tribhuvan University. His major areas of work include indigenous peoples’ issues, history and identity, participatory development and social inclusion. He has extensive experience of working as an expert on social development and engagement in civil society processes. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, and has been a Visiting Fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and Goldsmiths’ College of University of London. He also worked as a Research Fellow at the New School for Social Research in New York.

DR. ARCHANA SHRESTHA

Dr. Archana Shrestha is a Senior Divisional Meteorologistin Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Kathmandu. She recently led a field observation, research and report preparation tasks on the devastating tornado that lashed Bara and Parsa districts. She has also been involved in number of projects on regional climate modeling and climate change adaptation in Nepal. She received her Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received a Fulbright Foreign Student Fellowship.

SHANKER RAJ PANDEY

Shanker Raj Pandey currently works as a development professional and is associated with a bilateral agency in Nepal. A graduate of Xavier University and Georgetown University, Pandey has over three decades of professional experience in both the public and private sectors, particularly in the areas of commerce & industries, health, energy and economic development. He is also affiliated with not-for-profit organizations working in education and mental health. He was a Humphrey Fellow at American University in 1997-98.

Vacant

Dr. Sangeeta Mishra

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