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.
Christopher DeMuth has been president of AEI since 1986. He previously practiced law and was an economic consultant, taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, was editor and publisher of Regulation magazine, and served on the White House staffs of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Mr. DeMuth has published essays on domestic policy and politics in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of Regulation, Commentary, The American Enterprise, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East (including Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, a project on democracy for the Arab world, a roundtable of experts to discuss global energy security, and a project to develop bilateral relations between India and the United States. She recently served as a member of the congressionally mandated Task Force on the United Nations, established by the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Pletka has also been a journalist based in Washington and the Middle East.
Blair Ruble is director of the Kennan Institute (covering Russia and surrounding states) of the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C., where he also serves as program director for comparative urban studies. He is the editor of a dozen volumes and author of five monographic studies. His book-length works include a trilogy examining the fate of Russian provincial cities during the twentieth century: Leningrad. Shaping a Soviet City (University of California Press, 1990); Money Sings! The Changing Politics of Urban Space in Post-Soviet Yaroslavl (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995); and Second Metropolis: Pragmatic Pluralism in Gilded Age Chicago, Silver Age Moscow, and Meiji Osaka (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001). In his latest monographic study, Creating Diversity Capital, Ruble examines the changes in such cities as Montreal, Washington, and Kyiv brought about by the recent arrival of large transnational communities. A native of New York, Ruble worked previously at the Social Science Research Council in New York City (1985–89) and the National Council for Soviet and East European Research (1982–85).
Angela Stent is professor of government and director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University. In January 2004, she was appointed national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia on the National Intelligence Council. From 1999 to 2001, she served on the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on Soviet and Russian foreign policy, U.S.-Russian relations, and East-West economic ties, including From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West-German Soviet Relations, 1955–1980 (Cambridge University Press, 1981) and Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe (Princeton University Press, 1999). Both books were published in German. She is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Cold War Studies and Internationale Politik. She also has served on the boards of the U.S.-Russia Business Forum and Women in International Security. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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