Dave Rank is a nonresident senior fellow at American Progress. Rank retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2017 as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. In this capacity, Rank was the senior career diplomat in China, ran the embassy’s day-to-day operations, worked closely with his counterparts in Washington and Beijing, and served as the chargé d’affaires (acting ambassador) for six months. During his 27-year State Department career, Rank served three times at the embassy in Beijing, twice at the American Institute in Taiwan, and at the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai. He also served at the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan, Greece, and Mauritius. Rank’s domestic assignments included director of the State Department’s Office of Afghanistan Affairs, senior adviser to the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, special assistant to the under secretary of state for political affairs, and desk officer in the Office of Korean Affairs.
Rank now serves as a senior adviser at the Cohen Group and a senior fellow at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He has also taught at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and Wisconsin University’s La Follette School of Public Affairs and was a dean and Virginia Rusk fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
In 2015, Rank was awarded the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award for his role in the release of the only American service member held by the enemy in Afghanistan. He is also the recipient of the American Foreign Service Association’s Sinclaire Award for the study of languages and cultures. He speaks Mandarin, French, Dari, and Greek.