Michael Mcfaul

Michael McFaul was born in Glasgow, Montana, and raised in Butte and Bozeman. He pursued his higher education at Stanford University, earning a B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and an M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies in 1986. Continuing his academic journey, he completed a D.Phil. in International Relations as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University in 1991. Later, in 2015, Montana State University awarded him an honorary doctorate. His early engagement with Russian political figures included co-founding the Moscow Carnegie Center in 1994, and his research on electoral politics led to an invitation to the Kremlin during the 1996 Russian presidential election.

McFaul joined the Stanford faculty in 1995, where he served as a professor of political science and director of the university’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His academic career also includes roles as the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies and a Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His scholarly contributions include several books, most notably “From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia” in 2018. His research focuses on American foreign policy, great power relations, and the dynamics between democracy and development. He is also recognized as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist at The Washington Post.

In 2009, McFaul entered government service in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he was instrumental in developing the “Russian reset” policy. In 2012, he was nominated and confirmed as the 7th United States Ambassador to the Russian Federation, a role he held until 2014. During his ambassadorship, he actively engaged with Russian pro-democracy activists, which garnered accusations from Russian state media. Upon returning to academia in 2014, he remained involved in geopolitics, notably becoming a participant in the Yermak-McFaul Expert Group on Russian Sanctions following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.