Speaker biographies
Leon Aron is a resident scholar and director of Russian studies at AEI. He is the author of the first full-scale scholarly biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin’s Press, 2000) and Russia's Revolution: 1989–2006 (AEI Press, April 2007). Since 1998, he has written Russian Outlook, a quarterly essay on economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of Russia’s post-Soviet transition, published by AEI. He has contributed numerous essays and articles to newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Times (London), Newsday, The National Interest, Post-Soviet Affairs, and the Times Literary Supplement. A frequent guest on television and radio talk shows, he has commented on Russian affairs on 60 Minutes, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, CNN International, C-Span, and NPR’s All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation.
Anders Åslund is a senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. He was director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 2003 to 2006 and a senior associate from 1994 to 2006. A leading specialist on post-communist economic transformation—especially in Russia and Ukraine—Mr. Åslund has served as a senior economic adviser to the governments of Russia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. From 1989 to 1994, he was professor and founding director of the Stockholm Institute of East European Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics. He has also been a research scholar at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. A prolific writer, Mr. Åslund has authored six books and edited nine. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and an honorary professor of the Kyrgyz National University.
Andrei Kortunov is the president of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow. Until recently, he also served as deputy director and head of the Foreign Policy Department at the Institute for the USA and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Mr. Kortunov works extensively with the global academic community. He is the coordinator of multiple international security related projects involving counterparts in the United States, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Poland, Hungary, and Luxembourg. His teaching experience includes the design and conduct of specialized courses tailored to different academic levels and audiences at several American and Russian universities, including the University of California, Berkeley (1993) and the Moscow State University of International Relations (1996).
Andrew Kuchins is a senior fellow and director of the Russia and Eurasia Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2000 to 2006, he was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was director of its Russian and Eurasian Program in Washington, D.C., from 2000 to 2003, and again in 2006. He also served as director of the Carnegie Moscow Center in Russia from 2003 to 2005. From 1997 to 2000, he served as associate director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He also served as a senior program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation from 1993 to 1997. From 1989 to 1993, Mr. Kuchins was executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford Program on Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies. He is a member of the editorial boards of Pro et Contra and Demokratizatsia journals, and was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1995 to 2000. Mr. Kuchins conducts research and publishes widely on Russian foreign and security policy. His most recent books include Russia: The Next Ten Years (Carnegie, 2004, with Dmitri Trenin), and U.S.-Russia Relations: The Case for an Upgrade (Carnegie Moscow Center, 2005, with Vyacheslav Nikonov and Dmitri Trenin). He is currently working on another book, titled China and Russia: Strategic Partners, Allies, or Competitors?
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