Ambassador Chan Heng Chee is Ambassador-at-Large of Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She also holds the appointment of Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities in the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).  Ambassador Chan is also a Member of the Presidential Council of Minority Rights since 2012, and continues to serve in the position. She is also currently chairman of the National Arts Council since 2013. Ambassador Chan holds a wide variety of academic appointments in local and oversea universities, think-tanks and research institutes.

Ambassador Chan was the first woman to graduate with a first-class honours degree in Political Science in 1964 at the then University of Singapore, before earning her master’s degree from Cornell University in the United States in 1967, and her doctorate from the University of Singapore in 1974. She then became a lecturer in the Political Science Department before eventually heading the department from 1985 – 1987.

Ambassador Chan was Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1989 – 1991. During this same period, Ambassador Chan was concurrently accredited as the High Commissioner to Canada and Mexico. She then became Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States from 1996 – 2012. From 2012 to 2015, Ambassador Chan was appointed as Singapore’s Representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).