Academic Advisors

Professor Stephen Jones, Mount Holyoke College, AFP International Schollar: Professor Jones has been a member of the Mount Holyoke College faculty since 1989. He is an expert on post-communist societies in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and regularly briefs the CIA and U.S. State Department on developments in Caucasia and the North Caucasus. In 1995, he briefed William Courtney, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Georgia. From 1989 to 1991, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, Jones was repeatedly called upon by the New York Times, the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and National Geographic Magazine for background information. Prof. Jones was awarded the honorary Doctorate degree by Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University on October 10, 2011.

Professor Neil MacFarlane, Professor of International Relations Department, Oxford University, AFP International Schollar in 2005-2010.: Professor MacFarlane held a chair at the Oxford Faculty of International Relations in1996-2010. He is an expert on the former Soviet Union and has written extensively on Soviet/Developing World relations, post-Soviet security issues, Georgian security issues and contemporary changes to the international system more broadly. Recently he has also been a consultant to the UNDP in Georgia and Azerbaijan and given testimony to the UK Government on Central Asia and the Caucasus. Professor MacFarlane is a Head of international PhD program in International Relations at Tbilisi State University  since August 2010. Prof. MacFarlane was awarded the honorary Doctorate degree by Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University on October 10, 2011.

Professor Joanna Regulska, Head of Department of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers Univesity, AFP International Schollar in 2004-2010: Professor Regulska is a founder and director since 1989 of the Local Democracy Partnership (formerly Local Democracy in Poland) Program. Dr. Regulska has authored numerous publications on decentralization and local government reforms, women's political participation, and the role of NGOs during political transformation. Professor Regulska is a Head of international PhD program in Gender Studies at Tbilisi State University since September 2010. Prof. Regulska was awarded the honorary Doctorate degree by Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University on October 10, 2011.

Professor Fran Mascia - Lees is a Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University. From AY 2011-2012 Prof. Mascia – Lees is the International Academic Advisor of TSU MSocSc program in Gender Studies and AFP International Schollar. (PhD, SUNY-Albany, 1983; Prof and Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SAS). Her research interests include Body/embodiment, consumer culture, politics and aesthetics, phenomenologies of capitalism, cultural politics, critical ethnography and ethnographic writing, cultural representation, gender/race/difference and global inequalities; culture and desire; history and theory of anthropology; US.

Professor Alexander Rondeli, President of the Georgian Foundation For Strategic and International Studies: From 1997 to 2001 Dr Rondeli served as a Director of the Foreign Policy Research and Analysis Center at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. Prior to that, in 1991-1996, Dr. Rondeli was a Chair of an International Relations Department. at the Tbilisi State University. Prof. Rondeli holds a diplomatic rank of an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.