Matt Rojansky Appointed to Head Kennan Institute

WASHINGTON—The Wilson Center today announced that Matthew Rojansky will be Director of the Kennan Institute, which focuses on Russia, Ukraine, and other states in the region.

“We are delighted to be welcoming someone as insightful, experienced and capable as Matt to our team,” said Jane Harman, director, president, and CEO of the Wilson Center. “The Kennan Institute has been at the forefront of nurturing a new generation of leading scholars on Russia and Eurasia and ensuring that their research has an impact on policy and public ideas.  We know that Matt will build on that tradition and add his own scholarship and insights.”

Rojansky is an expert on U.S. relations with the states of the former Soviet Union, especially Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.  He has advised governments, intergovernmental organizations, and major private actors on conflict resolution and efforts to enhance shared security throughout the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region. 

From 2010 to 2013, he was Deputy Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  There, he founded Carnegie's Ukraine Program, led a multi-year project to support U.S.-Russia health cooperation, and created a track-two task force to promote resolution of the Moldova-Transnistria conflict.  From 2007 to 2010, Rojansky served as executive director of the Partnership for a Secure America (PSA). Founded by former congressman Lee Hamilton (D-IN) and former senator Warren Rudman (R-NH) with a group of two dozen former senior leaders from both political parties, PSA seeks to rebuild bipartisan dialogue and productive debate on U.S. national security and foreign policy challenges.

While at PSA, Rojansky orchestrated high-level bipartisan initiatives aimed at repairing the U.S.-Russian relationship, strengthening the U.S. commitment to nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, and leveraging global science engagement for diplomacy.

Rojansky is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS and American University, and a participant in the Dartmouth Dialogues, a track-two U.S.-Russian conflict resolution initiative begun in 1960.

He is frequently interviewed on TV and radio, and his writing has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and Foreign Policy. 

He joins one of the most celebrated U.S. centers for study of international affairs. The Kennan Institute was founded as a division of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in December 1974 through the joint initiative of Ambassador George F. Kennan, then Wilson Center Director James Billington, and historian S. Frederick Starr. Named in honor of Ambassador Kennan's relative, George Kennan "the Elder" (1845-1924), a nineteenth-century explorer of Russia and Siberia, the Kennan Institute is committed to improving American expertise and knowledge about the region. Through its residential scholarship programs, lecture and workshop series, and publication program, the Institute strives to attract, publicize, and integrate new research into the policy community.

Mr. Rojansky succeeds Blair A. Ruble, who is currently Director of the Wilson Center’s Program on Global Sustainability and Resilience and Senior Advisor to the Center’s Kennan Institute. He will start his new role on July 15 2013.

Media with questions should contact Drew Sample at drew.sample@wilsoncenter.org or 202-691-4379.

Notes to Editors

1.      The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the national, living memorial honoring President Woodrow Wilson. The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policymaking and scholarship to interact. By conducting relevant and timely research and promoting dialogue from all perspectives, it works to address the critical current and emerging challenges confronting the United States and the world. Created by an Act of Congress in 1968, The Wilson Center is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and supported by both public and private funds.