The following are details on our Non-Resident and Resident Fellowships, offered through the Regional Studies Center (RSC), an independent think tank in Yerevan, Armenia.

Mr. Richard Giragosian is the Founding Director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC), an independent “think tank” located in Yerevan, Armenia. He also serves as a Visiting Professor and as a Senior Expert at the YerevanStateUniversity’s Centre for European Studies (CES) and is a contributing analyst for Oxford Analytica, a London-based global analysis and advisory firm.

Giragosian previously served from 2009-2011 as the Director of the ArmenianCenter for National and International Studies (ACNIS), another think tank in Armenia. From 1999-2008, he was a regular contributor to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) publications, and also served as a contributing analyst for the London-based Jane’s Information Group from 2003-2010, covering political, economic and security issues in the South Caucasus, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. From 2008-2010, he was a regular columnist for the Turkish-language international edition of Newsweek and still serves as a consultant and adviser to several Turkish media outlets and analytical publications.

He has contributed to publications of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Bertelsmann Foundation, the International Security Network (ISN), the Swiss Peace Foundation, and has written for Jane’s Defence Weekly, Oxford Analytica’s Daily Brief, theChina and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Jane’s Intelligence Digest, the Hong Kong-based “Asia Times,” the journal Demokratizatsiya,Jane’s Foreign Report, the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, the “Turkish Daily News,” the Turkish Policy Quarterly, OxfordUniversity’s St. Antony’s International Review (STAIR), and the Harvard International Review, among others. He has also been regularly quoted and cited by the “Washington Post,” the “Wall Street Journal,” the “New York Times” and the “International Herald Tribune,” as well as by the BBC, AFP, Reuters and Bloomberg news agencies.

From 2002-2006, Giragosian served as a guest lecturer for the U.S. Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, NC, and has participated in various research projects for the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI), the Naval Post-Graduate School (NPS), the U.S. Navy’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS), and for the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School. He has also worked as a consultant for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the U.S. Departments of Defense and State, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union (EU), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the International Crisis Group (ICG), and the London-based global risk consultancy Control Risks, among others.

For nine years, Giragosian served as a Professional Staff Member of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the U.S. Congress. As the committee’s principal staffer for the former Soviet Union and China, he was responsible for organizing Congressional hearings, studies and briefings for Members of Congress and served as JEC liaison to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). He has also worked as an analyst for Abt Associates Inc., a social science consulting firm, from 2000-2005, and was a research consultant for the New America Foundation and the Center for National Policy (CNP) in Washington.

Giragosian is a member of the IREX Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program Reading Committee and the Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC) Fellowship Selection Committee. He was twice appointed as a State Commissioner on the Virginia Governor’s Commission on Armenian Affairs and the Virginia Gubernatorial Armenian Advisory Commission. He has also served as an honorary member of the National Steering Committees of both the 1996 Clinton-Gore Reelection Campaign and the Gore 2000 Presidential Campaign.

Ms. Satenik Baghdasaryan is the Project Director of the RSC Black Sea project, focusing on broad economic, political and security issues in the wider Black Sea region. She also provides research and analysis in support of other RSC projects, and serves as a Teaching Assistant for graduate courses at the YerevanSateUniversity’s Centre for European Studies (CES).

Baghdasaryan holds an MA in European Studies from the YerevanStateUniversity’s (YSU) Center for European Studies, where she also earned a BA in Political Science, and completed the American Institute on Political and Economic Systems (AIPES) academic program at CharlesUniversity in Prague. She has also worked as a Research Assistant at the ArmenianCenter for National and International Studies (ACNIS) and as a Project Coordinator at the Civic Forum NGO, a Yerevan-based civil society organization. She has also officially represented the RSC in various conferences, both within Armenia and Europe, including a high-level conference devoted to the EU Eastern Partnership programme that was convened in Poland, and has also successfully completed a specialized “Managing Defense in the Wider Security Context” training course implemented by the UK Ministry of Defence, which took place in Tbilisi, Georgia in May 2012.

Mr. Robert Ghazinyan is the Project Director of the RSC Economic & Financial Analysis project, a strategic partnership with an Armenian financial education and services group. In addition to providing research and analysis in support of other RSC projects, including the RSC Turkey and Iran projects, he also serves as a Teaching Assistant for a certified professional development and training program for young professionals and graduate students, known as the “RSCExpertSchool.” Mr. Ghazinyan holds both a BA and an MA in Iranian Studies from the Yerevan State University (YSU). He has also successfully completed a specialized “Managing Defense in the Wider Security Context” training course implemented by the UK Ministry of Defence, which took place in Tbilisi, Georgia in May 2012. He has officially represented the RSC in various conferences, both within Armenia and Europe.

Ms. Anush Ghazaryan is a Research Analyst working on a number of RSC projects, with a specific focus on economic and financial analysis and security issues. She is a graduate of the EuropeanRegionalEducationalAcademy in Armenia and is currently completing an MA at the YerevanStateUniversity’s Centre for European Studies (CES), with a specialization in Armenian-EU relations, European enlargement and integration, and the EU’s Eastern Partnership. Ms. Ghazaryan has officially represented the RSC in various international conferences. Most recently, Ms. Ghazaryan participated in a December 2012 security seminar organized by the Washington-based Fund for Peace (FFP), in cooperation with TbilisiStateUniversity and the Georgian Institute of Politics, in Tbilisi, Georgia, focusing on the converging threats of proliferation, trafficking, terrorism, and state weakness in the South Caucasus.