María de Lourdes Dieck-Assad

Dr. María de Lourdes Dieck-Assad is a Mexican economist who has held positions in academia, an international organization, government and business, including professorships in the United States and Mexico as well as serving as Mexico's ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the institutions of the European Union from 2004 to 2007. For her service in this capacity, she was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Belgium. She attended the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education from 1971 to 1975, graduating with a bachelor's in economics. She received her master's in 1976 from Vanderbilt University and her doctorate in the same field from the University of Texas in Austin in 1983 with a dissertation entitled "The effect of economic shocks under different monetary procedures and different economic structures," which she wrote as an intern at the Brookings Institution. She has said that she wanted to work to make an impact on Mexico since she was studying as an undergraduate, mostly in economic and social issues. Her husband is economist Pedro Quintanilla Gómez-Noriega. They lived in Austin, Texas for five years, where they both pursued doctoral studies in Economics. Then they went to live in Washington, DC where both worked. They returned to Mexico in 1992. When an opportunity came for Dieck-Assad to represent Mexico in Europe, she received the full support of her husband and her three children, who were already in high school and college.