S. Frederick Starr is the founding chairman of the Central Asia -Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, a joint transatlantic research and policy center affiliated with Johns Hopkins University-SAIS in Washington (where Starr is Research Professor) and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. His research on the countries of Greater Central Asia, their history, development, internal dynamics, as well as on US policy towards the region has resulted in twenty-two books and 200 published articles. He has also written extensively on Russian history and current affairs.