Our People

Mary Karapetian Alvord, PhD, is a Psychologist and Director of Alvord, Baker & Associates LLC in Rockville, MD. She also holds a position of Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Barbara McConnell Barrett [Distinguished honorary member], JD, was the 25th Secretary of the US Air Force, US Ambassador to Finland, and senior advisor to the U.S. mission to the United Nations. She was interim president of Thunderbird School of Global Management and a Fellow teaching Leadership at Harvard. After training at Star City, Russia, Ambassador Barrett qualified for flight to the International Space Station.

Stephen K. Batalden, PhD, served as a professor of History at ASU for 40 years and was the founding director of the ASU Melikian Center. He is currently a Melikian Center research professor, leading ASU’s contribution to the Yerevan State University American Studies grant program funded by the US Embassy in Armenia.

Shahin H. Berisha, PhD, is a retired Faculty Member of the Math and Science Division of GateWay Community College and a Visiting Professor with the Melikian Center. He has served as a facilitator for the Center’s projects with and in Kosovo for over 20 years.

Ronald M. Birks, MSEE, is a senior software engineer and international representative with Honeywell International, Inc. He received a BA in Russian and a Russian and East European Studies (REES) Certificate at ASU and studied Polish and Albanian in the Critical Languages Institute (CLI).

Keith S. Brown, PhD, is Director of the Melikian Center and Professor in the ASU School of Politics and Global Studies. His research has focused primarily on politics, culture and identity in the Balkans, with a particular emphasis on relations between Macedonia, Greece, and Bulgaria.

Craig Calhoun [Executive Committee - Board President-Elect], D. Phil. is University Professor of Social Sciences at ASU. His work at ASU focuses on strengthening the ability of the social sciences, working together with the natural sciences, engineering and humanities, to address the most complex challenges facing society today. Calhoun has also served as director and president of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and president of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), as well as on the faculty of New York University (NYU), Columbia University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). 

Philip M. Carrano [Executive Committee - Board Treasurer] , MPA, is Director of Fiscal Business Services for the ASU College of Health Solutions (CHS). He served for over three years as the business operations manager for the Melikian Center before joining CHS.

 Lee B. Croft, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Russian Language and Culture at Arizona State University, where he taught and administered foreign language programs for 38 years (1973-2011) and served as Head of the Faculty of German, Slavic, and Romanian from 2006-2011 in the School of International Letters and Cultures. He is an affiliate of the Melikian Center, having been a co-founder of its predecessor, the ASU Russian and East European Studies Consortium (REESC), and co-founder and founding Director of the Center's Critical Languages Institute (CLI).

Victor Friedman [Distinguished honorary member], PhD, is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at the University of Chicago and an Honorary Associate at La Trobe University. He is president of the U.S. National Committee of the International Association for Southeast European Studies. He is also a member of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Sciences of Albania, the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Kosova, Matica Srpska, and has been awarded the "1300 Years of Bulgaria" jubilee medal and the Medal of Merit of Macedonia.

Aleksandra Gruzinska, PhD, is an Emeritus Professor in the ASU School of International Letters and Cultures, where she primarily taught courses on 19th Century French literature. Her research interests also include Nobel Prize Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska and Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. Her longtime interest is the exploration of the fate of unaccompanied Polish children in their trajectory of exile, homelessness, repatriation or immigration, from Poland, by way of Spain, to the U.S. during and after WWII.

Andrew Gunn, MA, is a manager at a computer and network security firm. He received his BA in Russian at ASU, where he also studied Macedonian in the Melikian Center’s CLI, and received his MA in Russian at the University of Arizona. Before returning to the world of cyber, he served for two years as an Assistant Director in the Melikian Center working on outreach and the CLI.

Yuliana Gunn, MA, is a Russian linguist. She earned her BA in Political Science and Russian at the University of New Hampshire, and her MA in Russian, Central European, East European, and Eurasia Studies at the University of Arizona. Yuliana has taught Russian at ASU in the School of International Letters and Cultures and in the CLI, as well as at the University of Arizona, Indiana University, and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Patrick Heuer, JD, is a graduate of both the CLI Tajik summer language program and the ASU Russian language program. He parlayed the global outlook and human empathy he gained at ASU into a successful international career as an energy consultant. During the course of his consulting career, Patrick advised CEOs, COOs, and CFOs on four continents. 

Following over a decade of global energy advisory from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the hill country of Indonesia, Patrick and his two partners sold their consultancy, and he has remained as an Executive Vice President to advise on the growth of the energy operations.

Patience T Huntwork, JD, is a staff attorney at the Arizona Supreme Court. She has served on legal reform projects and as an election observer in Ukraine, and she is a recipient of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America's "Man of the Year" award.

Mary "Marcie" J. Hutchinson, MA, was a high school History and Government teacher for over 30 years, primarily in Mesa, AZ, and now serves as Clerk of the Governing Board of Mesa Public Schools. For several years, she served as Director of K-12 Initiatives for the ASU School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, and was interim Chief of Party in Prishtina, Kosovo, for the Center’s “Future Voters of Kosovo” project funded by the U.S. State Department.

Charles Irion, MBA, is an Executive Committee Board Member of Project C.U.R.E. and has traveled extensively in delivering aid and supplies from Project C.U.R.E. In the private sector, he is the owner and founder of U.S. Park Investments, a firm specializing in the acquisition, sale, and marketing of manufactured home and RV communities. Charles earned his MBA at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in International Marketing and Finance.

Michael D. Kennedy [Distinguished honorary member], PhD, serves as a Professor of Sociology and International Public Affairs at Brown University. Throughout his career, he has addressed East European social movements, and systemic change, including work in Poland and Kosovo.  

Pauline Komnenich, PhD, serves as a Professor and the Director of the Master of Science in Nursing Program in the ASU Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation. Her research training includes inter-professional nursing and healthcare education internationally, specifically in the Balkans, and earlier research using ethnoscience/sociolinguistics methodology examining greeting behavior among Serbians and Montenegrins.

Ilene J. Lashinsky [Executive Committee - Board Secretary] , JD, serves as lawyer for the US government, working to promote the integrity and efficiency of the bankruptcy system. Previously, she was a practicing commercial and bankruptcy and as such she served for a year as a resident bankruptcy advisor on a commercial law project in North Macedonia.

Arben Lasku, MD, has lived in the Phoenix area since 1997, when he left his native Albania with his wife to join her parents in Phoenix. He had already established a medical career in Albania, completed a specialization in nuclear medicine in Italy, and was on the faculty of the University of Tirana in Albania. He is an active member of the American-Albanian community in greater Phoenix, playing a leading role in establishing an Albanian language program for school-age children.

Rifat Latifi, MD, is a Professor of Surgery in the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona. He earned his MD at the University of Prishtina, Kosovo, and received his surgery training at Yale University. He has previously served as the Minister of Health of the Republic of Kosovo.

Linda Costigan Lederman, PhD, is an Emeritus Professor of the ASU Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, and a former Dean of Social Sciences in the ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where she oversaw the activities of the Melikian Center. An expert on communication and substance abuse, her research has been funded by federal agencies such as the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the US Department of Education. 

Emma O. Melikian has a particular interest in supporting language study as a means to maintain and build peace. Over many years, she has been a supporter of education and the arts in Phoenix and ASU. Emma and her husband Greg were awarded the ASU University Medal of Excellence in 2008 by President Crow for their leadership and civic engagement.

Ramona L. Melikian, MS, began her career at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York after her internship as Assistant to the Director of Communications at the National Council for International Health in Washington, DC. Ramona is currently a Senior Consultant at Right Management, an international organizational consulting firm servicing Fortune Global 500 corporations. She has travelled extensively throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe, and Asia.

Robert A. Melikian, JD, has managed the family's property, the historic Hotel San Carlos in downtown Phoenix about which he has published a book. He is a strong proponent of historic preservation of buildings in Phoenix and around Arizona.

David A. Merkel [Executive Committee - Board President], has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs; Director for South and Central Asia Affairs at the National Security Council; Director for European and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council; and Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at the US Treasury Department. He also served as International Counselor to the Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of Nazarbayev University in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, and the Josef Korbel School of International Studies Social Science Foundation at the University of Denver.

Claire Sechler Merkel currently serves as Senior Director, Arizona Programs for the McCain Institute for International Leadership at ASU. She served as Associate Director in the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs for President George H.W. Bush, as a Legislative Assistant to US Senator John McCain and aid to Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe. She was a Regional Director for Eastern and Central Europe at the International Republican Institute, where she worked and traveled in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Albania, North Macedonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. She founded Sechler Merkel International to provide strategic advice to companies and foundations.

Stephen Ovanessoff, MD, recently retired as a pathologist. He is an active member of the Armenian-American community in Phoenix and serves on the Parish Council at St. Apkar Armenian Apostolic Church in Scottsdale.

Charles "Charlie" Tichy, PhD, served as a Professor of German and Russian for 45 years at Slippery Rock University, PA, and was Chair of the Modern Language Department for 25 years. He published several articles on  higher education distant learning and articulation. Retired in Gilbert, AZ he has taught a course in the ASU Barrett Honors College on Crimea and is an  ASU Associate Professor Emeritus member. He joined the advisory board of the Melikian Center because of the center’s elaborate international projects and its developed language institute

Amanda Weaver, PhD, JD, is a commercial litigation attorney with the law firm Snell & Wilmer. She received her BA in Russian and English Linguistics and her PhD in Applied Linguistics from Arizona State University. Amanda received her MA in Russian and her JD from the University of Arizona. Amanda taught Russian at the Melikian Center’s Critical Languages Institute, and taught Russian as a faculty associate through ASU’s School of International Letters and Cultures. She is also a certified therapeutic (horseback) riding instructor.

Peter Zimm, MBA, leads strategy, market positioning, and operations improvement consulting projects for aerospace companies.  A Principal for aerospace-focused management consulting firm Charles Edwards, he has delivered scores of projects for OEMs, Tier 1s, subtier suppliers, and raw materials companies across the world.  Peter is an internationally-recognized market expert in aerospace raw materials, aircraft components, manufacturing process technologies, and aircraft emissions.