John W. Slocum
Director, Migration and Human Mobility
Co-Chair, Higher Education Initiative in Russia

Email: jslocum at macfound dot org

John Slocum is the Director of Global Migration and Human Mobility, and Co-Chair of the Higher Education Initiative in Russia.

Prior to joining the Foundation in 1997, Slocum was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, and held a postdoctoral position at Cornell University's Peace Studies Program. He has traveled extensively in the former Soviet Union and is the author of several publications on issues of nationality and state-formation in Tsarist and contemporary Russia, and on the external relations of Tatarstan, part of the Russian Federation. In Summer 2005, Slocum was a visiting fellow at the Maecenata Institute for Philanthropy and Civil Society in Berlin. His latest research compares U.S. and German foundation assistance to Russia, and examines the development of Russia’s philanthropic sector.

Slocum's undergraduate degree is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his master's and Ph.D. (in political science) are from the University of Chicago.

Igor Zevelev
Director, Moscow Office

Email: izevelev at macfound dot org

Igor comes to the Foundation with strong academic credentials and varied experience as a scholar, teacher, and analyst of Russian politics, foreign policy, and international security. He holds a Doctor of Sciences degree in political science from the Institute of International Relations and World Economy (IMEMO) in Moscow, where he served as Deputy Director and Head of Department at the Center for Developing Countries. He has held visiting professorships at Macalester College, the University of California at Berkeley, San Jose State University, and the University of Washington, and taught for five years at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany. He has published five books and numerous articles. He comes to MacArthur after having served as Washington Bureau Chief for the RIA Novosti Russian News and Information Agency.

Elena Kordzaya
Associate Director

Email: ekordzay at macfound dot org

Elena Kordzaya is the Associate Director in the Foundation's Moscow Office. Kordzaya has overall responsibility for the administrative operations of the Moscow Office and a significant amount of interaction with the Chicago office and other grantmakers active in Russia.

Prior to joining MacArthur, Kordzaya worked for International Research & Exchange Board (IREX), where she served as Co-Director of the Promoting and Strengthening Russian NGO Development Program. She has held senior management positions with Save the Children Federation's Georgia Field Office/Civic Initiative Program and the NGO Support Program of World Learning (in Moscow).

Kordzaya has her MA in Philosophy from the Georgian State Institute of Foreign Languages in Tbilisi (1976).

Simon Cosgrove
Program Officer

Email: scosgrove at macfound dot org

Simon Cosgrove is a Program Officer for Global Security & Sustainability working in the Moscow Office. He has much of the responsibility for human rights grantmaking in the Initiative in the Russian Federation and Post-Soviet States. Prior to joining MacArthur, Cosgrove worked at the European Commission Delegation in Moscow as Chief Political Analyst. Later he became Team Leader for the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR). At EIDHR, Cosgrove was responsible for the European Union's grantmaking for human rights and democratic development in Russia. In addition to his experience with the European Commission, Cosgrove worked as a secondary school teacher in London and taught English in rural northwestern Zimbabwe. Cosgrove is a British national with a PhD in Russian area studies from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London. His master's degree is in Soviet studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of Russian Nationalism and the Politics of Soviet Literature: The Case of Nash sovremennik 1981-91, which examines the roots of ideological opposition to democratic government and human rights in Russia.