Speaker Bios

Twenty Years of Democracy and Governance Programs in Europe and
Eurasia
Speaker Biographical Information
Ms. Paige Alexander was sworn in as Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Europe and
Eurasia (E&E). With over twenty years working in international development in the region, she
draws upon her experience both in the field and in D.C. From 2001-2010, Ms. Alexander held
the position of Senior Vice President at IREX, an international nonprofit development
organization that supports educators, journalists and community leaders in over 100 countries.
Ms. Alexander returns to USAID where, prior to joining IREX, she served for eight years in a
number of positions in E&E, including as Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator. Ms.
Alexander’s other notable positions include serving as Associate Director of Project Liberty at
Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and as a Consultant to the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the C.S. Mott Foundation and the Open Society Institute in Prague.
Ms. Alexander also served on the Boards of the Basic Education Coalition and the Project on
Middle East Democracy.
Dr. Ron Sprout is the Bureau Economist for USAID’s Bureau for Europe and Eurasia and
leader of the Monitoring Country Progress (MCP) team of five empirical analysts. He has a
Ph.D. in Economics and an M.A. in International Affairs from the American University in
Washington, D.C. Ron has led the development and application of the MCP system since its
inception in 1997. Prior to USAID, Ron worked for the United Nation’s Economic Commission
for Latin America and the Caribbean as the Economist for the ECLAC-IDB Project to Support
Hemispheric Trade Liberalization. In addition, he has taught economics and international affairs
at the American University and Trinity College in Washington, and continues to periodically
lecture at the National Defense University in Washington.
Mr. Jonathan Hale was appointed Deputy Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia at
USAID in April 2010. His responsibilities include management of strategic planning, policy, and
implementation for USAID’s programs spanning 15 countries in Europe and Eurasia. Mr. Hale
also represents USAID/E&E as the interlocutor with the National Security Council, the
Department of State and other U.S. government agencies regarding policy and programming. Mr.
Hale previously served as Counsel to U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell and advised the Senator on
foreign policy, defense, trade, and judiciary issues. From 2003-2004, Mr. Hale served on the

John Kerry Presidential campaign’s national security team. Mr. Hale was previously an attorney
in the international group at former Secretary of State James Baker’s law firm - Baker Botts
L.L.P. He counseled on various legal aspects of international business and represented clients
developing energy projects and oil and gas pipelines in the Caucasus and Caspian Sea Regions.
He also worked for U.S. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell in the early 1990s. Mr. Hale
graduated magna cum laude from Bates College with a B.A. in Political Science and was
appointed to Phi Beta Kappa. He studied abroad at Moscow State University and Kharkiv State
University in Ukraine. Mr. Hale received a J.D./ M.A. (International Affairs) from American
University. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
Dr. Henry E. Hale is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and is
Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES), its Petrach
Program on Ukraine, and the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia
(PONARS Eurasia). His writings focus on issues of ethnicity, democracy, and international
integration, and he is the author of the books The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: Separatism of
States and Nations in Eurasia and the World (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Why Not
Parties in Russia Democracy, Federalism and the State (Cambridge University Press, 2006),
winner of the American Political Science Association's Leon D. Epstein Outstanding Book
Award for 2006 and 2007. He is also co-editor of the book Developments in Russian Politics 7
(Duke University Press, 2010). His articles have appeared in a variety of journals, with his piece
"Divided We Stand" (World Politics, 2003) winning the APSA's Qualitative Methods Section's
Alexander George Award. He spent 2007-2008 on a Fulbright Scholarship in Moscow working
on a new book, Great Expectations: The Politics of Regime Change in Eurasia, which he is
currently writing up. Prior to joining GW, he taught at Indiana University (2000-2005), the
European University at St. Petersburg, Russia (1999), and the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy (1997-98). He has also served as coordinator of party-building programs at Harvard's
Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (1998-2000) and editor of the Russian Election
Watch (1999-2000 and 2003-04). Dr. Hale earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1998.
Dr. Andrew Green is the president of DGMetrics, Inc., a small business specializing in applied
research, strategic assessments, and rigorous monitoring and evaluation. He has conducted
extensive research on post-communist civil societies, including a dissertation examining the
democratic effect of civil society engagement in policymaking processes, a quantitative indicator
based on features of non-profit law, the Johns Hopkins Non Profit Sector Project, and a Wilson
Center-funded grant analyzing the role of private and governmental donors in post-communist
democracy assistance. In addition, Dr. Green created and taught a graduate course on democracy
assistance at Georgetown University. He was also a senior partner on the DG Office’s recent
political party assistance project, and in conjunction with RTI developed an indicator measuring
the quality of election administration. DGMetrics is an organizational partner with the Solidarity
Center on its five-year Global Labor Program, which includes quasi-experimental evaluation,
and a soon-to-be protégé of the East-West Management Institute.
Ms. Amber B. Brooks is the Civil Society Advisor to the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia at
USAID. In this capacity, Ms. Brooks supports the USAID Missions in Europe and Eurasia
through short term technical assistance around civil society programming. Amber serves as the
editor of the NGO Sustainability Index, which measures the NGO environment in Europe &
Eurasia and manages USAID’s contribution to the The Black Sea Trust for Regional

Cooperation which awards small grants to promote civic participation in the greater Black Sea
region. Before starting with USAID in 2005, Ms. Brooks worked at the Brookings Institute on
the Volcker Commission’s National Commission on Public Service, was an independent
program evaluator for a local non-profit organization and served as Peace Corps volunteer in
Orastie, Romania where she worked with civil society at the municipal level. Ms. Brooks has a
Master’s degree in Public Administration – with an emphasis in international development and
program evaluation – from The George Washington University.
Ms. Jeanne Bourgault is the President of Internews. In this capacity, she leads the strategic
management of the organization and its programs in some 40 countries around the world.
Bourgault previously served as Internews’ Chief Operating Officer; she joined Internews in 2001
as Vice President for Programs. Bourgault has overseen Internews’ growth in areas underserved
by local media, including Afghanistan, where Internews has supported the development of more
than 35 local, independently operated radio stations throughout the country, a Kabul-based
national news service, more than ten regional multimedia centers, and an independent local
journalism training institution, all in a previous vacuum of local media. Under Bourgault’s
leadership, Internews has led the sector in focusing on the need for information amid crises,
working to support local news and information access for communities affected by disaster,
including the 2005 Asian Tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Prior to Internews, Bourgault
worked internationally in countries undergoing dramatic shifts in media and political landscapes.
Bourgault worked in the former Yugoslavia, serving as a strategic advisor for media
development programs in post-war Kosovo, as well as manager of community development
projects in Serbia and Montenegro through the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. She served for six
years with the U.S. Agency for International Development, including three years working on
Latin America programs followed by three years at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Bourgault has
consulted on international program design and evaluation for the Open Society Institute, the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the
Research Triangle Institute, and the United Nations Centre for Human Rights, among others.
Bourgault speaks very rusty Russian and holds a Master of Arts in International Studies and a
Masters in Public Affairs from the University of Washington.
Ms. Meg Gaydosik is the Senior Media Development Advisor in the Europe and Eurasia Bureau
at USAID/Washington. In this capacity, Ms. Gaydosik provides advice and assistance to USAID
Missions and policymakers on indigenous media development programming, freedom of
expression and access to information issues. Prior to joining USAID in 2006, Ms. Gaydosik
worked for 11 years as an on-site media development consultant and/or project manager in most
of the Balkan and former Soviet Union countries. She has comprehensive skills in media
management, operations and community relationship building, as well as internationally
recognized expertise in the business, regulatory and content production aspects of media
development. She was awarded a Knight International Press Fellowship (2003-2004), serving in
Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Gaydosik is a former commercial television station manager
from Fairbanks, Alaska and holds a B.S. from Edinboro State University.
Dr. Eric McGlinchey is an Associate Professor of Government and Politics at George Mason’s
Department of Public and International Affairs. Prior to joining George Mason University in
August 2005, Dr. McGlinchey held positions as an Assistant Professor of Politics at Iowa State
University (2003-05) and as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Central Asian Studies at Stanford

University (2002-2003). Dr. McGlinchey's areas of research include comparative politics,
Central Asian regime change, political Islam, and the effects of Information Communication
Technology (ICT) on state and society. Grants from the National Science Foundation, the
National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, and the Social Science Research
Council have founded his research. Dr. McGlinchey is author of Chaos, Violence, Dynasty:
Politics and Islam in Central Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). Dr. McGlinchey
received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2003
Dr. Lincoln Mitchell is an associate research scholar at Columbia University's Harriman
Institute. Before joining Columbia’s faculty, Lincoln was a practitioner of political development
and continues to work in that field now. In addition to serving as Chief of Party for the National
Democratic Institute (NDI) in Georgia from 2002-2004, Lincoln has worked on political
development issues in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East,
Africa and Asia. Lincoln also worked for years as a political consultant in New York City
advising and managing domestic political campaigns. Dr. Mitchell’s current research includes
work on US-Georgia relations, political development in the former Soviet Union, and the role of
democracy promotion in American foreign policy. His book Uncertain Democracy: US Foreign
Policy and Georgia’s Rose Revolution was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in
2008. His next book, The Color Revolutions, will be published in spring of 2012. He has also
written articles on these topics in The National Interest, Orbis, The Moscow Times, the
Washington Quarterly, The American Interest, Survival, the Central Asian Survey, The New
York Daily News and Current History as well as for numerous online publications including the
online sections of The Washington Post, New York Times, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and
Transitions Online. Lincoln has been quoted extensively in most major American, Georgian and
Russian newspapers and appeared on numerous television and radio programs and podcasts, as
well as in Russian and Georgian television. He is also a frequent blogger on The Huffington Post
where he writes primarily about domestic politics in the US and on The Faster Times where he
writes about US Foreign Policy and baseball. He is currently working on a book about the Color
Revolutions in the former Soviet Union. Lincoln earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University’s
department of political science in 1996.
Dr. Sean Roberts is Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Director or
the International Development Studies Program at George Washington’s Elliott School of
International Affairs. Dr. Roberts is a cultural anthropologist with extensive applied experience
in international development work. Having conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the
Uyghur people of Central Asia and China during the 1990s, he has published extensively on this
community in scholarly journals and in collected volumes. In addition, he produced a
documentary film on the Uyghurs of Kazakhstan entitled Waiting for Uighurstan (1996) and is
presently writing a book about the community. In 1998-2000 and 2002-2006, he worked at the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Central Asia on democracy
programs, designing and managing projects in civil society development, political party
assistance, community development, independent media strengthening, and elections assistance.
Dr. Roberts received his Ph.D. from University of Southern California.
Dr. Alexander Sokolowski serves as the Senior Political Processes Advisor to the Bureau for
Europe and Eurasia at USAID, Washington. In this capacity, he provides advice and technical

assistance on elections assistance and political party development. Since January 2009, he has
also served as the Acting Team Lead for Democracy and Governance in the Bureau for Europe
and Eurasia. Prior to joining USAID in June 2003, he taught Comparative Politics at George
Washington University as an adjunct professor. He received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton
University in November 2002, writing his dissertation on the structural and political
determinants of fiscal and social policy failure in Yeltsin’s Russia. He has served as a Foreign
Policy Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution (2000-2001). He also holds master’s degrees
from Princeton (2000) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1994), and a B.A. from
Amherst College (1991). Through the mid to late 1990s, he worked for the National Democratic
Institute’s Moscow office as a Political Party Program Officer and Political Analyst. Fluent in
Russian, he has published articles on Russian politics in academic journals (Europe-Asia Studies,
Demokratizatsiya) and opinion pieces (The Moscow Times).
Dr. George Gavrilis is Executive Director of the Hollings Center for International Dialogue in
Washington, DC and senior research scholar at Columbia University in New York. His research
is in the fields of border management, international assistance to post-conflict states, and politics
and economy of the Middle East and Central Asia. In 2008-09, Dr. Gavrilis served as an
International Affairs Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations and worked with the United
Nations on various policy initiatives on Central Asia and Afghanistan. He previously taught
international relations and comparative politics in the Department of Government at the
University of Texas-Austin, directed research for the CFR Oral History Project at Columbia
University, and served as a National Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Olin Institute for
Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Gavrilis is author of The Dynamics of Interstate
Boundaries (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and has published articles in Foreign Affairs and
The New York Times on Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Israel and the West Bank.
Dr. Gerald F. (“Jerry”) Hyman has been Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies and the President of its Hills Program on Governance since 2007. From
2002 to 2007, he was the director of the US Agency for International Development’s global
Office of Democracy and Governance a senior management position. Between 1990 and 2002,
he held a number of posts at USAID dealing with democracy and governance, including (from
2001 to 2002) a USAID Senior Management Group position as director of the Office of
Democracy, Governance and Social Transitions in the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. He
developed the programming strategy paradigm for USAID democracy and governance
assistance. From 1985 to 1990, he practiced corporate law at Covington & Burling in
Washington DC. Between 1970 and 1982, he taught in the Department of Sociology &
Anthropology at Smith College. He also taught courses at Williams College. He holds a BA in
Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago and a JD from the
University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous articles and publications. He is a member
of the Advisory Board of National Endowment for Democracy’s Center for International Media
Assistance and of the American Bar Association’s CEELI/MENA Advisory Board.
Dr. Eric Rudenshiold is the Senior Officer in Charge for Central Asia and Kyrgyzstan in the
USAID Asia Bureau and prior to that served as the Senior Governance and Anticorruption
Advisor in the Europe and Eurasia Bureau at USAID/Washington. Dr. Rudenshiold provides
topical advice and assistance on transitional development issues to USG policymakers. He also

currently teaches graduate courses in democracy theory and post-Soviet development in the
International Development Studies program at George Washington University’s Elliot School of
International Affairs. Before joining USAID in Washington D.C., Dr. Rudenshiold held senior
positions with a number of democracy implementers, as well as with the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe. Having lived and worked overseas for more than a dozen
years, including in the former-Soviet Union, he has extensive experience across the Europe and
Eurasia region. Dr. Rudenshiold has worked as a journalist and editor, has published in
academic journals and appeared as a regional expert on democracy issues on the BBC, CNN
International and PBS’s Lehrer Newshour. He has a B.A. awarded summa cum laude from
Drake University in Journalism, an M.A. in Comparative Governance from the University of
Virginia and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Virginia. Dr. Rudenshiold
speaks Russian and French.
Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld is a non-resident associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, and the founding CEO of the Truman National Security Project. Her passion lies in issues
at the interstices of national security, human security, and development. Rachel has consulted on
rule of law reform for the World Bank, the European Union, the OECD, the Open Society
Institute, and other institutions, and has briefed multiple U.S. government agencies. Her writings
have appeared in Relocating the Rule of Law (Hart, 2009), Promoting Democracy and the Rule
of Law: American and European Strategies (Palgrave, 2009), Promoting the Rule of Law: The
Problem of Knowledge (Carnegie Endowment, 2006) and other publications. Named one of the
Top 40 under 40 Political Leaders in America by Time magazine in 2010, Rachel has been
featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other national television, radio, and
print media. Rachel has worked in human rights and economic development in India, Israel, and
Eastern Europe, and has served as an elections monitor in Pakistan and Bangladesh and currently
serves on the State Department’s newly created Foreign Affairs Policy Board.
Mr. Suren Avanesyan is the Senior Rule of Law Advisor in the Europe and Eurasia Bureau at
USAID/Washington. Mr. Avanesyan provides technical guidance and policy advice to the
Bureau, the field missions and the US Government on issues relating to the justice sector reform
efforts in the former Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Prior to
joining USAID, Mr. Avanesyan worked in several for-profit and not-for-profit international
development organizations in Washington, DC, where he designed, implemented, assessed and
evaluated rule of law programs in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. He was a home office
director of the USAID Justice Sector Reform Activity—a project that saw the transition of
Kosovo from an international protectorate to an independent country resulting in creation of the
brand new Ministry of Justice and Judicial Council. Mr. Avanesyan also managed projects in
Serbia, Azerbaijan, Mongolia and Egypt and worked on ROL assessments and evaluations in
several post-communist countries. A native of Russia, Mr. Avanesyan practiced law in Russia as
a member of the Union of Advokats of Russia, and is fluent in Russian. After coming to the
United States in 1995, he completed his MA (1998) and JD (1999) at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and LL.M. in International Legal Studies (2001) at New York University
School of Law. He has published articles on international human and constitutional rights, child
trafficking, and issues of civil liability in international law.

Dr. Sarah E. Mendelson currently serves as Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s
Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) responsible for
Democracy, Human Rights and Governance. She joined the Obama administration in this role in
May 2010. Prior to her current position, Dr. Mendelson was the Director of the Human Rights
and Security Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She has
worked for nearly two decades on a wide variety of issues related to human rights and
democracy including in Moscow as a program officer with the National Democratic Institute in
1994 and 1995. Before coming to CSIS, she was a professor of international politics at the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. At CSIS, she conducted over a
dozen public opinion surveys in Russia, tracking views on Chechnya, HIV/AIDS, military and
police abuse, religious identity in the North Caucasus, as well as knowledge and experiences
with human trafficking. She has researched the links between human trafficking and
peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, and her work helped shape U.S. legislation and policies
at NATO on this issue. In 2007-2008, she led a working group on closing Guantánamo, the
recommendations from which were reflected in the Executive Orders signed January 22, 2009.
In summer 2009, she helped convene the Parallel Civil Society Summit in Moscow during
President Obama’s trip to Russia. She received her B.A. in history from Yale University and her
Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. She has held fellowships at Stanford
University and Princeton University. She serves on the editorial board of International Security
and was a member of the advisory committee for the Europe and Central Asia Division of
Human Rights Watch, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A frequent
contributor to the media, she has authored numerous peer-reviewed and public policy articles in
addition to Changing Course: Ideas, Politics and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan
(Princeton University Press, 1998); The Power and Limits of NGOs: Transnational Networks
and Post-Communist Societies (Columbia University Press, 2002); Barracks and Brothels:
Peacekeepers and Human Trafficking in the Balkans (CSIS Press, 2005); and From Assistance to
Engagement: A Model for a New Era in U.S.-Russian Civil Society Relations (CSIS Press,
2009).
Mr. Thomas Carothers is the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. He is the founder and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program,
which analyzes the state of democracy in the world and the efforts by the United States and other
countries to promote democracy. Carothers is a leading authority on democracy promotion and
democratization worldwide as well as an expert on U.S. foreign policy generally. He has worked
on democracy assistance projects for many public and private organizations and carried out
extensive field research on democracy-building efforts around the world. In addition, he has
broad experience in matters dealing with development, human rights, rule of law, and civil
society development. He is the author or editor of eight critically acclaimed books on democracy
promotion, as well as many articles in prominent journals and newspapers. He is a senior
research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University, and has also taught at the Central
European University and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Prior to
joining the Endowment, Carothers practiced international and financial law at Arnold & Porter
and served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of
State. Carothers received his A.B. from Harvard College, M.Sc. from London School of
Economics and J.D., from Harvard Law School.

Ms. Roberta Mahoney is the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Bureau for
Europe and Eurasia. She assumed this role in November 2009. Ms. Mahoney oversees program
and management systems for the Bureau’s $800 million annual budget to assist 15 countries in
Europe and Eurasia and legacy programs in graduated countries. Her responsibilities include
strategic planning, policy and program implementation, and financial, human and administrative
resource management. Ms. Mahoney represents USAID/E&E as a principal interlocutor with the
National Security Council, the Department of State and other U.S. government agencies
regarding policy and programming in Eurasia. Ms. Mahoney has worked for USAID for 25
years. Before her appointment as Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, she served as Mission
Director in Albania. She also served as an economics officer in both Kenya and Malawi, as well
as an Associate Mission Director in Egypt. In Washington, she served in several positions in
USAID’s Policy, Africa, and Europe and Eurasia Bureaus. Her most recent position was as
Director of the Office for Resources for Sustainable Development in the Bureau for Latin
America and the Caribbean Ms. Mahoney has Master of Science degrees in Regional Planning
from the University of California in Los Angeles and in natural resource economics and
international trade from the University of Wisconsin. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Fiji
for several years.
Dr. Sally Kux is Senior Advisor for democracy and governance issues and programs in the U.S.
Department of State’s Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance (F). The office is
charged by the Secretary of State with ensuring that U.S. Government Foreign Assistance
administered by the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development is
strategic, coordinated, and effective. Within this office, Dr. Kux serves as the office point of
contact for U.S. government and non-governmental implementers of democracy and governance
programs globally. Before joining F, Dr. Kux served as the Director for Democracy Programs in
the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia. She
joined the Department of State working on Europe and Eurasia starting in 1999. Dr. Kux began
her government career at the U.S. Information Agency in 1994. She graduated from the
University of Chicago with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian studies and a Master of Arts
degree in Social Science. She received her Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and
Literature from Stanford University.
Dr. Daniel Serwer is a Professor of Conflict Management, as well as a senior fellow at the
Center for Transatlantic Relations, at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies. He has also taught at George Washington and Georgetown Universities and is a scholar
at the Middle East Institute. As vice president for centers of peacebuilding innovation at the
United States Institute of Peace (2009-10), he led teams there working on rule of law, religion,
economics, media, technology, security sector governance and gender. Previously vice president
for peace and stability operations at USIP, he led its peacebuilding work in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Sudan and the Balkans. He also served as Executive Director of the Hamilton/Baker Iraq Study
Group in 2006. Serwer has worked on preventing interethnic and sectarian conflict in Iraq and
has facilitated dialogue between Serbs and Albanians in the Balkans. He came to USIP as a
senior fellow working on Balkan regional security in 1998-1999 and played a seminal role in
U.S. program of assistance to the Serbian opposition. Before that, he was a minister-counselor at
the Department of State. As State Department director of European and Canadian analysis in
1996-1997, he supervised the analysts who tracked Bosnia and Dayton implementation as well as

the deterioration of the security situation in Albania and Kosovo. Serwer served from 1994 to
1996 as U.S. special envoy and coordinator for the Bosnian Federation, mediating between
Croats and Muslims and negotiating the first agreement reached at the Dayton peace talks. From
1990 to 1993, he was deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in
Rome. Dr. Serwer earned his Ph.D. at Princeton, an M.S. at the University of Chicago and his
B.A. at Haverford College. He blogs at www.peacefare.net and tweets @DanielSerwer
Dr. Cory Welt is Associate Director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies
(IERES) at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, where he
jointly oversees the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS
Eurasia). He is a specialist on the Caucasus and Eurasian security and has written several articles
on conflict resolution, transborder security, and political change in Georgia, including for
Europe-Asia Studies, Demokratizatsiya, and The Nonproliferation Review, and contributed book
chapters to The Birth of Modern Georgia (Jones, forthcoming), Democracy and
Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World (Bunce, McFaul, Stoner-Weiss, eds., Cambridge
University Press) and America and the World in the Age of Terror (Benjamin, ed., CSIS Press).
Dr. Welt was previously associate director (2007-2009) and director (2009) of the Eurasian
Strategy Project at Georgetown University and deputy director and fellow of the Russia and
Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) (2003-2007). He
received his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2004)
and his B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University (1995).
Dr. Erica Marat is an adjunct professor at American University. Previously, she was a research
fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, which is affiliated
with the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University.
She is an expert on security issues in Central Asia, with a focus on military, national, and
regional defense, as well as state-crime relations in Eurasia. Marat has published widely, both in
peer review journals and policy-oriented forums. She is a regular contributor to the Central Asia-
Caucasus Analyst and to the Eurasia Daily Monitor. Her most recent book is The Military and
the State in Central Asia: From Red Army to Independence. Marat holds a BA in Sociology
from the American University - Central Asia, an MA in Political Sociology from the Central
European University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Bremen
Mr. Daniel Rosenblum is the Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia. Working
within the State Department’s Bureau for European and Eurasian Affairs, and coordinating
closely with the Bureau for South and Central Asian Affairs and the Office of the Director of
Foreign Assistance, Mr. Rosenblum oversees all U.S. Government assistance to more than thirty
countries in Europe and Eurasia, with primary focus on the Balkans and the former Soviet
Union, including Central Asia. He coordinates the programs of more than a dozen U.S.
government agencies and State Department bureaus involved in U.S. economic, democratic,
security, and humanitarian assistance in the region, and designs assistance strategies that support
U.S. foreign policy priorities. He also plays the lead role in allocating foreign assistance budgets
appropriated by Congress, and works closely with foreign governments, multilateral institutions,
and NGOs to ensure that U.S. foreign aid is used efficiently and effectively. From 2004-2008,
Mr. Rosenblum served as the Deputy Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia, and
for a portion of that time was “double-hatted” as the Senior Coordinator for Europe and Eurasia
in the Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance. Previously (1997-2004), he was a Special

Advisor for Economic Programs and later Director of the FREEDOM Support Act Division in
the Assistance Coordinator’s office. Mr. Rosenblum has a BA in History from Yale University
and an MA in Soviet Studies and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of
Advanced International Studies.