Before coming to Brookings, Dr. Negroponte practiced law with Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, specializing in international trade and aviation matters. She also played an active role with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Mexico during the negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement. She continues her legal interests with her current research and writing on judicial and police reform in Latin America.

Diana Negroponte has spent a lifetime devoted to social and development issues, particularly in the developing world. In Uganda, she taught blind children mathematics and music. In Honduras, she worked actively with refugees, displaced by the civil wars in two neighboring countries, as well as the teaching of illiterate adults and the provision of medicines for children with cancer. In Mexico, she built low income homes in city slums with Habitat for Humanity International and initiated a program for the artistic development of people with disabilities, Very Special Arts in Mexico. In the Philippines, she dedicated time to micro-credit programs throughout the country, as well as building homes with Habitat for Humanity.

She has remained involved in the area of social development, serving on the boards or advisory councils of various U.S. non-profit organizations dedicated to these causes.