Dr. Ekaterina Sokirianskaia has 17 years of experience working in the areas of human rights and conflict resolution in the North Caucasus. From 2011 to 2017, she served as Russia/North Caucasus Project Director at the International Crisis Group, overseeing the organisation’s research and advocacy activities in the region. In the period 2008-2011, Dr. Sokirianskaia established and supervised the work of the new regional offices of the Memorial Human Rights Center in Kabardino-Balkariya and Dagestan. Pior to that, she was permanently based in Ingushetia and Chechnya and performed the functions of Project Director and researcher at Memorial and of professor at Grozny University.   

Dr. Sokirianskaia holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Central European University. She is a prolific scholar on topics related to human rights, security and conflict in the North Caucasus and Russia.