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Speakers” Bios: Modern Ukrainian State at 25

Madeleine K. Albright

Madeleine K. Albright is chair of Albright Stonebridge Group and chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. Dr. Albright was the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. In 1997, she was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. As Secretary of State, Dr. Albright reinforced America”s alliances, advocated democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade and business, labor and environmental standards abroad. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Janusz Bugajski

Janusz Bugajski is a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington DC and host of television shows broadcast in the Balkans. Bugajski has authored 20 books on Europe, Russia, and trans-Atlantic relations and is a columnist for several media outlets. His recent books include Eurasian Disunion: Russia”s Vulnerable Flanks (with Margarita Assenova) (2016); Conflict Zones: North Caucasus and Western Balkans Compared (2014); Return of the Balkans: Challenges to European Integration and U.S. Disengagement (2013); and Georgian Lessons: Conflicting Russian and Western Interests in the Wider Europe (2010).

Ariel Cohen

Ariel Cohen is a well-known international expert on Ukrainian, Russian, Eurasian, European and Middle Eastern foreign, security and economic affairs; global energy security; terrorism and organized crime. He is presently Director of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security; concurrently, he is a Non Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States. For many years previous, Dr. Cohen served as Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security at the Heritage Foundation, working closely with Congressmen and Congressional staff members and cabinet-level foreign decision makers.

William Courtney

William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation and executive director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum. He is also president of the U.S.-Kazakhstan Business Association, which represents U.S. exporters to and investors in Kazakhstan. In 2014 he retired from Computer Sciences Corporation as senior principal for federal policy strategy. From 1972 through 1999, he was a foreign service officer in the U.S. Department of State. He co-chaired the U.S. delegation to the review conference that prepared for the 1999 Istanbul Summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and advised in the reorganization of U.S. foreign affairs agencies, mandated by the Foreign Affairs Reform Act of 1999. Earlier he served as special assistant to the President for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia and as Ambassador to Georgia, Kazakhstan, and the U.S.-Soviet commission that implemented the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.

Anders Corr

Anders Corr founded Corr Analytics Inc. (www.canalyt.com) to provide strategic analysis of international politics. He is Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk (www.jpolrisk.com). His areas of expertise include global macro analysis, quantitative analysis, and public opinion, and he maintains a global network of regional and subject-specific political risk experts. Dr. Corr has researched Russia and Ukraine for the US Department of Defense, as well as Vietnam, Israel and the Palestinian territories for private clients. He led the US Army Social Science Research and Analysis group in Afghanistan, which oversaw 600 Afghan contract employees on 44 survey projects, and conducted quantitative predictive analysis of insurgent attacks.

Mustafa Dzhemiliev

Mustafa Dzhemilev is former Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and a member of the Ukrainian Parliament since 1998. He is the recognized leader of the Crimean Tatar National Movement and a former Soviet dissident. At the age of 18, Mr. Dzhemilev and several of his activist friends established the Union of Young Crimean Tatars. He thus began the arduous and long struggle for the recognition of the rights of Crimean Tatars to return to their homeland. Between 1966 and 1986, Mr. Dzhemilev was arrested six times for anti-Soviet activities and served time in Soviet prisons and labor camps, or lived under surveillance. He is also remembered for going on the longest hunger strike in the history of human rights movements; the hunger strike lasted for 303 days, but he survived due to forced feeding.

Eliot L. Engel

Eliot L. Engel is the Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He also serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee including the Subcommittee on Health, and the Subcommittee on Energy and Power. As a United States Congressman from NY (D), he represents the 16th District. In April 2016, Rep. Engel, along with a bipartisan group of 15 members he help coalesce, introduced the STAND for Ukraine Act (H.R.5094), which clarifies the position of the United States on Russia”s illegal occupation of Crimea, tightens sanctions on Russia, and drives new innovations to provide support for Ukraine.

Lubomyr Hajda

Lubomyr Hajda is Associate Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. A historian with a Ph.D. from Harvard University, he has taught at Harvard and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. From 1978 to 1992 he held the position of Academic Coordinator of Harvard”s Master”s program in Soviet studies. Among Dr. Hajda”s publications are the entry on Ukrainian history in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th ed.), The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society (with Mark Beissinger), and Ukraine in the World: Studies in the International Relations and Security Structure of a Newly Independent State.

Tamara Gallo Olexy

Tamara Gallo Olexy is currently completing her second term as President of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), the representative organization of nearly one million Americans of Ukrainian decent. Previous to her current position, Ms. Gallo Olexy spent several years heading the National Office of the UCCA in New York, as well as directing the Ukrainian National Information Service in Washington, DC.

Paul Goble

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the Euro College of the University of Tartu in Estonia. While there, he launched the “Window on Eurasia” series. Prior to joining the faculty there in 2004, he served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Paul Roderick Gregory

Paul R. Gregory is a Research Fellow, Hoover Institution and Cullen Professor of Economics, University of Houston. He is also a research professor at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. He is chair of the International Advisory Board of the Kiev School of Economics. Dr. Gregory serves as co-editor of the Yale-Hoover Series on Stalin, Stalinism, and Cold War; he has co-edited archival publications, such as the seven volume History of Stalin”s Gulag (2004) and the three-volume Stenograms of Meetings of the Politburo (2008). He is the author or coauthor of twelve books and more than one hundred articles on economic history, transition economies, comparative economics, and economic demography. His recent publications include Lenin”s Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives (Hoover, 2004) and Terror by Quota (Yale, 2009). He blogs on national and international economic topics at http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/.

Phillip Karber

Phillip Karber is President of the Potomac Foundation; he was named to this position in 2012, having been a Senior Fellow since the Foundation”s inception in 1988. Dr. Karber is an internationally recognized expert in defense and national security matters; an accomplished business executive; and an academic. He has prepared studies on defense strategy for the highest levels of the U.S. government; advised major NATO governments on defense issues; headed BDM Corporation”s International Division; and taught courses in national security and military affairs at Georgetown University, where he also was founding director of the Asian Arms Control Project.

Adrian Karmazyn

Adrian Karmazyn is a Special Advisor for Strategic Communications and Development at the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation. From 2005 to 2015 he served as Chief of the Ukrainian Service of the Voice of America, during which time VOA significantly expanded its impact and audience in Ukraine”s television market. Prior to his appointment to a management role at VOA, he worked as a journalist in the Ukrainian Service.

David J. Kramer

David J. Kramer joined the McCain Institute as Senior Director for Human Rights and Democracy in November 2014. Before that, he served for four years as President of Freedom House. Prior to that, he was a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Mr. Kramer served eight years in the U.S. Department of State, including as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus affairs as well as regional non-proliferation issues); Professional Staff Member in the Secretary”s Office of Policy Planning; and Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary for Global Affairs. Mr. Kramer has been an Adjunct Professor at the Elliott School for International Affairs at The George Washington University. He also was Executive Director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy in Washington.

Roma Lisovich

Roma Lisovich presently serves as Treasurer of the Ukrainian National Association..Under her leadership and that of the current president, Mr. Stefan Kaczaraj, the UNA, the oldest of the Ukrainian American Hromada”s organizations (established 1893), has been revitalized and is set to take on the various challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Prior to her work with the UA-AM community, Ms. Lisovich held several high level corporate posts with responsibilities in the international section at Corestates Bank (now Wells Fargo) and First Fidelity Bank.