Ambassador Lyman is Executive Director of the Aspen Institute's Global Interdependence Initiative, a major long-term project, which undertakes to examine the way the American people view the U.S. role in an increasingly interdependent world. He is also chairman of the Nigeria Working Group of the Corporate Council on Africa, a member of the Executive Board of the U.S.-South Africa Business Council, and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. Ambassador Lyman is a board member of several philanthropic and civic organizations, including the Fund for Peace, Childreach, the Amy Biehl Foundation, and the Balkan Development Initiative.
As a career Foreign Service officer, Ambassador Lyman served most recently as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. Previously he was Ambassador to South Africa and then Nigeria, Director of the State Department's Refugee Programs Bureau, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Prior to the Department of State, he served in the Agency for International Development, in Korea, and as USAID Director in Ethiopia. At the Overseas Development Council, in conjunction with the James Baker Institute at Rice and the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard, he directed in 1999-2000 the project "America's National Interests in Multilateral Engagement: A Bipartisan Dialogue."
Ambassador Lyman holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.