2024 STars hall of fame

Liliana Ferrer

AMBASSADOR OF MEXICO TO THAILAND, CONCURRENT IN CAMBODIA

Del Campo HS ‘82

Ambassador Ferrer has been a Mexican Career Foreign Service Officer since 1992 and holds the rank of career Ambassador. She was appointed Ambassador of Mexico to Thailand, concurrent in Cambodia, as of December 2023 after having served as Consul General of Mexico in Sacramento, California. Prior to that, she served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Mexican Embassy in Paris where she was awarded the highest French order of merit (Legion of Honor in the rank of officer) and previously was commissioned at the Embassy of Mexico in Washington, D.C. where she was Head of Political and Border Affairs having spent various years as well as Liaison Officer with the United States Congress.

Prior to her posting at the Embassy in D.C., she spent a year at Harvard University as a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs doing research on lobbying in the United States. In Mexico City, Ms. Ferrer has served as: Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of Economic Affairs and International Cooperation; and as Director of United States Bilateral Relations. She has also been commissioned at the Mexican Consulates in San Diego and Los Angeles as Consul for Economic, Political and Mexican Community Affairs, and in Guatemala City as Mexico´s Deputy Consul General. She is a third generation career diplomat.

Ambassador Ferrer received her Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations from the University of California, Davis, and her Masters in Pacific International Affairs from the University of California, San Diego (today the Graduate School of Policy and Strategy), where she was awarded a pre-doctoral fellowship at the Center for US-Mexico Studies. Prior to joining the Mexican Foreign Service, Ms. Ferrer worked with the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and with Catholic Relief Services in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the worst times of drought and famine in the 1980´s. She also has a deep love for the arts having worked as a young adult in musical theatre and as a professional jazz dancer.

Ambassador Ferrer has taught at UCLA and Georgetown Universities, and recently published a chapter on Mexico´s Diplomacy in California as part of the book The International Relations of California and Texas with Mexico and the World (Routledge, 2023).

Ms. Ferrer is married to California native Douglas Smurr, and is mother to Alexander (UC Berkeley) and María Cecilia (UCLA).