Munter came to EWI in 2015 from Pomona College in California, where he had taught since his retirement from the Foreign Service in 2012. He was a career diplomat for three decades, serving in some of the most conflict- ridden areas of the globe. He was U.S. ambassador to Pakistan from 2010 to 2012, where he guided U.S.- Pakistani relations through a strained period—including the operation against Osama bin Laden.

Previously, he was Ambassador to Serbia and served twice in Iraq, leading the first Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mosul and then in Baghdad. In Europe, he served in the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. He was a director for Central Europe at the National Security Council under Presidents Clinton and Bush and had numerous other domestic assignments at the State Department in Washington, D.C.

Before joining the Foreign Service, Munter taught European history at the University of California, Los Angeles. He taught at Columbia University School of Law and was also a program officer at the Twentieth Century Fund (now the Century Foundation).

Born in California, Munter graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University and earned a doctorate in modern European history from Johns Hopkins University. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Council on Foreign Relations.