Ambassador Joseph M. Torsella

Joseph M. Torsella was sworn in as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations for UN Management and Reform on April 26, 2011. Ambassador Torsella most recently served as the Chairman of the Pennsylvania State Board of Education. Under his leadership, the Board passed a landmark accountability measure implementing rigorous statewide requirements for high school graduation.

Previously, Ambassador Torsella was the founding President and CEO of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a non-profit museum and education center dedicated to explaining and celebrating American ideas and ideals. In this position, he steered the $185 million project from early concept to successful completion, and later established the Center’s international program, including democracy education work in Afghanistan.

Ambassador Torsella also has been a small business owner and, in 1992-93, served as a Deputy Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, where he led many of the management reforms that closed that city’s $1.2 billion cumulative deficit.

Ambassador Torsella is a former Rhodes Scholar and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate (B.A., History/Economics) of the University of Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Carolyn Short Torsella, have four children.