Fiona Hill Named Director of the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings

Steven Pifer to Be Brookings Senior Fellow

Fiona Hill, an expert on Russia and Eurasia, will return to the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow and director of the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE), Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced today. Steven Pifer, the acting director of CUSE, has been named a Brookings senior fellow.

Hill, who will rejoin Brookings on November 1, has been on leave from Brookings since June 2006 while serving as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. She is a frequent commentator on Russian and Eurasian affairs and has researched and published extensively on Russia; the states of the former Soviet Union; ethno-political conflicts in Eurasia; and energy and strategic issues.

Steven Pifer, who has been a visiting fellow since April 2008, will focus on arms control and non-proliferation.

“Fiona is a gifted scholar and analyst with keen insight on the evolving political landscape across Europe and Eurasia,” said Talbott. “Her command of the issues—from energy security to terrorism to the problems of strengthening democracies in the former states of the Soviet Union—makes her ideally suited to direct the Center on the United States and Europe.”

“At a time of such enormous global challenges, I plan to develop the center’s place as a premier forum for research, dialogue, debate and collaboration with our allies in Europe and Eurasia,” said Hill.

Prior to joining Brookings, Hill was director of strategic planning at the Eurasia Foundation in Washington, D.C. From 1994 to 1999, she was associate director of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and, from 1991 to 1994, she was director of Harvard’s project on ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union, coordinator of Harvard’s trilateral study on Japanese-Russian-U.S. relations and a research associate at the Kennedy School of Government. A Frank Knox fellow at Harvard University, Hill holds an M.A. in Russian and modern history from St. Andrews University in Scotland; an A.M. in Soviet studies; and a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. Hill’s book with Brookings Senior Fellow Clifford Gaddy, The Siberian Curse. How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold, was published by Brookings Press in December 2003.

Before coming to Brookings as a visiting fellow, Steven Pifer served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. His twenty-five year career as a Foreign Service officer centered on Europe, the former Soviet Union and arms control. In addition to Kyiv, he had postings in London, Moscow, Geneva and Warsaw as well as on the National Security Council. Pifer holds a B.A. in economics from Stanford University.