Diane B. Kunz

Dr. Diane B. Kunz, Esq. is Executive Director of the Center for Adoption Policy, a 501 (c) 3 corporation that has become the preeminent legal and policy institute engaged in adoption and family creation issues. Dr. Kunz has advised U.S. government agencies including the Department of State, USCIS, and the Centers for Disease Control.  She was one of the architects of the Haitian Humanitarian Parole program which brought over 1,100 unparented children home to their identified adoptive parents after the devasting 2010 earthquake and co-authored the Help Haiti Act of 2010 which granted U.S. citizenship to the adopted children.   From 1976 to 1983 Dr. Kunz practiced corporate law with the firms of White & Case and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (Cornell University, J.D. 1976, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Columbia University, 1975-1976). She left the practice of law and studied diplomatic and economic history at Oxford University (M. Litt. 1986) and Yale University (Ph.D, 1989). From 1988 until 1998 she was Assistant, then Associate Professor of History at Yale University. While at Yale she wrote extensively on twentieth century history, including the prize- winning book, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis and Butter and Guns: The Economic Diplomacy of the Cold War. From 1998-2001 she taught history and international relations at Columbia University and since 2010 has been associated in various capacities with Duke University.  Her work in progress, The Importance of HavingChildren:  A Diplomatic, Economic, and Social History of U.S. International Adoption, is under contract with UNC press.