Harley Balzer

Harley Balzer, Professor Emeritus, Georgetown UniversityHarley Balzer retired in June 2016 from his positions in the Department of Government and School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He remains a Faculty Associate in the Department of History. He served as Director of Georgetown’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies 1987-2001. Prior to coming to Georgetown he taught at Grinnell College and Boston University, and held post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard's Russian Research Center and the MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society. In 1983 he spent a year as a Congressional Fellow in the office of Congressman Lee Hamilton, where one of his assignments was to secure House passage of what is now called “Title VIII” of the State Department Appropriation, providing funding for research and training about the former Soviet Bloc. Dr. Balzer earned his BA in history and political science from Washington University (St. Louis) Magna Cum Laude in 1969. He earned his MA (1973) and PhD (1980) in History at the University of Pennsylvania. He lived in the Soviet Union in 1975-76 and 1985-86 on IREX and Fulbright-Hays grants, and has visited the Russian Federation more than 60 times since 1991.In 1992-93 Dr. Balzer served as Executive Director and Chairman of the Board of the International Science Foundation, George Soros's largest program to aid the former Soviet Union.  From 1998 to 2009, he was a member of the Governing Council of the Basic Research and Higher Education (BRHE) Program, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, Carnegie Corporation and Russian Ministry of Education. BRHE established 16 Research and Education Centers at Russian Universities, and was subsequently significantly expanded by the Russian Government using their own resources. Since 2004 Dr. Balzer has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the European University at St. Petersburg.His publications include Soviet Science on the Edge of Reform (1989)
Address: Rockville, Maryland, United States