Project Mentors

Stephen Kotkin (IPF Group Advisor, Combating Open Society Threats in the Former Soviet Union) is Professor of European and Asian history at Princeton University, where he also directs the Russian Studies Program. He serves on the Editorial Board and Trustees of Princeton University Press and on the Executive Committee of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS). Outside Princeton, he serves on the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Advisory Committee and as a consultant to a number of foundations. He has authored, co-authored, or edited nine books, including Magnetic Mountain (1995), Armageddon Averted (2001), and Political Corruption in Transition: A Handbook (2002). He has been a visiting professor in Russia and Japan, and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He writes reviews and essays for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Financial Times, The New Republic, and the TLS. He is also a commentator on the BBC and National Public Radio (NPR). His current project-"Lost in Siberia: Dreamworlds of Eurasia"-is a study of the Ob River basin over the last seven centuries. He earned a PhD and MA from the University of California at Berkeley.