Alina Polyakova

Alina Polyakova

President and CEO | Center for European Policy Analysis

Alina Polyakova is the President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and founding director of the Project on Global Democracy and Emerging Technology. She was, until February 2020, a fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution where she led the Foreign Policy program’s Democracy Working Group. Polyakova was part of the inaugural class of David M. Rubenstein fellows at Brookings. She is also adjunct professor of European studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. Her work examines Russian political warfare, European populism, digital authoritarianism, and the implications of emerging technologies to democracies. Polyakova’s book, “The Dark Side of European Integration” (ibidem-Verlag and Columbia University Press, 2015) analyzed the rise of far-right political parties in Europe. She is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy and commentator in major media outlets including Fox News, CNN, BBC, and Bloomberg, among others.

Previously, she served as director of research and senior fellow for Europe and Eurasia at the Atlantic Council, professor of sociology at the University of Bern, and Fulbright Fellow. She serves on the board of the Free Russia Foundation and has held numerous fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the National Science Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation, among others.

Polyakova holds a master’s and doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s in economics and sociology with highest honors from Emory University.

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