Michael McFaul is one of the world’s leading experts 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 Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He 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 (2009-2012), then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014). He is the author of several books, most recently From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia (2018).