Andis Kudors (PhD candidate) is a visiting scholar at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs. From 2006 to 2019, Mr. Kudors was the Executive Director of the Centre for East European Policy Studies. He has published many analytical articles about Russian foreign policy and Latvian security. He is the editor of several books, including Fortress Russia: Political, Economic, and Security Development in Russia following the Annexation of Crimea and its Consequences for the Baltic States (2016), and The War in Syria: Lessons for the West (2016). He has been a member of the Foreign Policy Council at the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2011 and was a Fulbright scholar at the Kennan Institute (Woodrow Wilson Center) in Washington DC from 2014  to 2015.  In 2021, Andis Kudors was appointed Commander of The Cross of Recognition by the President of the Republic of Latvia Egils Levits for his contribution to the research of Latvian national security.

Robert Orttung is a Research Professor at IERES and the Director of Research for Sustainable GW. He is editor of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Demokratization and co-editor of the Russian Analytical Digest. His research focuses on issues of urban sustainability in the Arctic.