Rachel Denber is deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. Prior to her current post, Denber was the head of the Human Rights Watch Moscow office from 1992–97.

She earned a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University in international relations and a master's degree in political science from Columbia University, where she studied at the Harriman Institute. She specializes in countries of the former Soviet Union, and speaks fluent Russian and French. She has written about and traveled widely in Russia, the southern Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Baltic states.

Richard Ericson is professor of economics and chair of the economics department at East Carolina University.

He graduated from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in 1971, received an MIA degree from the Columbia University School of International Affairs in 1974, and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1979. He is on the editorial advisory board of Post-Soviet Affairs, and Post-Soviet Economics and Geography.

His current research is on the economic transition in Russia and the impact of the institutional and structural legacies of the Soviet economic system, and on game-theoretic analyses of refugee negotiations.

Michael Hall is the regional director for the Caucasus and Central Asia at the Open Society Institute.

Hall holds an MA in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia from Harvard University. He has studied in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and previously worked for International Crisis Group in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and the Aga Khan Humanities Project in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Associate Director of Open Society Institute
Director of the Central Eurasia Project and Middle East & North Africa Initiative

Anthony Richter is the associate director of the Open Society Institute, and director of the OSI Central Eurasia Project and Middle East & North Africa Initiative.

Richter is chairman of the governing board of the Revenue Watch Institute and serves on the board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the World Policy Journal, and other publications. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  He received a BA, with high honors, from Wesleyan University and an MA in Slavic languages and literatures from Columbia University. He speaks Russian, French, and Persian.