Michael McFaul is a leading expert on Russia, American foreign policy, and democratic development around the world. A former U.S. ambassador to Russia, McFaul is currently a professor of political science at Stanford University, the director of Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House, and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation.

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller, “From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia.”  His current research interests include American foreign policy, great power relations between China, Russia, and the United States, and the relationship between democracy and development. As background, he received his BA and MA from Stanford and D. Phil from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.