Professor Karl has published widely on comparative politics and international relations, with special emphasis on the politics of oil-exporting countries, transitions to democracy, problems of inequality, the global politics of human rights, and the resolution of civil wars. Her works on oil, human rights and democracy include The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (University of California Press, 1998), honored as one of the two best books on Latin America by the Latin American Studies Association, the Bottom of the Barrel: Africa's Oil Boom and the Poor (2004 with Ian Gary), the forthcoming New and Old Oil Wars (with Mary Kaldor and Yahia Said), and the forthcoming Overcoming the Resource Curse (with Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs et al). She has also co-authored Limits of Competition (MIT Press, 1996), winner of the Twelve Stars Environmental Prize from the European Community. Karl has published extensively on comparative democratization, ending civil wars in Central America, and political economy. She has conducted field research throughout Latin America, West Africa and Eastern Europe. Her work has been translated into 15 languages.

Karl has a strong interest in U.S. foreign policy and has prepared expert testimony for the U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the United Nations. She served as an advisor to chief U.N. peace negotiators in El Salvador and Guatemala and monitored elections for the United Nations. She accompanied numerous congressional delegations to Central America, lectured frequently before officials of the Department of State, Defense, and the Agency for International Development, and served as an adviser to the Chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States Congress. Karl appears frequently in national and local media. Her most recent opinion piece was published in 25 countries.

Karl has been an expert witness in major human rights and war crimes trials in the United States that have set important legal precedents, most notably the first jury verdict in U.S. history against military commanders for murder and torture under the doctrine of command responsibility and the first jury verdict in U.S. history finding commanders responsible for "crimes against humanity" under the doctrine of command responsibility. In January 2006, her testimony formed the basis for a landmark victory for human rights on the statute of limitations issue. Her testimonies regarding political asylum have been presented to the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit courts. She has written over 250 affidavits for political asylum, and she has prepared testimony for the U.S. Attorney General on the extension of temporary protected status for Salvadorans in the United States and the conditions of unaccompanied minors in U.S. custody. As a result of her human rights work, she received the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa from the University of San Francisco in 2005.

Professor Karl has been recognized for "exceptional teaching throughout her career," resulting in her appointment as the William R. and Gretchen Kimball University Fellowship. She has also won the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching (1989), the Allan V. Cox Medal for Faculty Excellence Fostering Undergraduate Research (1994), and the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Graduate and Undergraduate Teaching (1997), the University's highest academic prize. Karl served as director of Stanford's Center for Latin American Studies from 1990-2001, was praised by the president of Stanford for elevating the Center for Latin American Studies to "unprecedented levels of intelligent, dynamic, cross-disciplinary activity and public service in literature, arts, social sciences, and professions." In 1997 she was awarded the Rio Branco Prize by the President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in recognition for her service in fostering academic relations between the United States and Latin America.

Coit Blacker is a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Olivier Nomellini Professor Emeritus in International Studies at the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. He served as director of FSI from 2003 to 2012. From 2005 to 2011, he was co-chair of the International Initiative of the Stanford Challenge, and from 2004 to 2007, served as a member of the Development Committee of the university's Board of Trustees.

During the first Clinton administration, Blacker served as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC). At the NSC, he oversaw the implementation of U.S. policy toward Russia and the New Independent States, while also serving as principal staff assistant to the president and the National Security Advisor on matters relating to the former Soviet Union.

Following his government service, Blacker returned to Stanford to resume his research and teaching. From 1998 to 2003, he also co-directed the Aspen Institute's U.S.-Russia Dialogue, which brought together prominent U.S. and Russian specialists on foreign and defense policy for discussion and review of critical issues in the bilateral relationship. He was a study group member of the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission) throughout the commission's tenure.

In 2001, Blacker was the recipient of the Laurence and Naomi Carpenter Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching at Stanford.

Blacker holds an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies for his work on U.S.-Russian relations. He is a graduate of Occidental College (A.B., Political Science) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (M.A., M.A.L.D., and Ph.D).

Blacker's association with Stanford began in 1977, when he was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship by the Arms Control and Disarmament Program, the precursor to the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI.

Rafiq Dossani was a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) and erstwhile director of the Stanford Center for South Asia. His research interests include South Asian security, government, higher education, technology, and business.  

Dossani’s most recent book is Knowledge Perspectives of New Product Development, co-edited with D. Assimakopoulos and E. Carayannis, published in 2011 by Springer. His earlier books include Does South Asia Exist?, published in 2010 by Shorenstein APARC; India Arriving, published in 2007 by AMACOM Books/American Management Association (reprinted in India in 2008 by McGraw-Hill, and in China in 2009 by Oriental Publishing House); Prospects for Peace in South Asia, co-edited with Henry Rowen, published in 2005 by Stanford University Press; and Telecommunications Reform in India, published in 2002 by Greenwood Press. One book is under preparation: Higher Education in the BRIC Countries, co-authored with Martin Carnoy and others, to be published in 2012.

Dossani currently chairs FOCUS USA, a non-profit organization that supports emergency relief in the developing world. Between 2004 and 2010, he was a trustee of Hidden Villa, a non-profit educational organization in the Bay Area. He also serves on the board of the Industry Studies Association, and is chair of the Industry Studies Association Annual Conference for 2010–12.

Earlier, Dossani worked for the Robert Fleming Investment Banking group, first as CEO of its India operations and later as head of its San Francisco operations. He also previously served as the chairman and CEO of a stockbroking firm on the OTCEI stock exchange in India, as the deputy editor of Business India Weekly, and as a professor of finance at Pennsylvania State University.

Dossani holds a BA in economics from St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, India; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India; and a PhD in finance from Northwestern University.

David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages, most recently into Chinese. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

McFaul 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), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausėda of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. 

An expert in international law and legal institutions, Thomas C. Heller has focused his research on the rule of law, international climate control, global energy use, and the interaction of government and nongovernmental organizations in establishing legal structures in the developing world. He has created innovative courses on the role of law in transitional and developing economies, as well as the comparative study of law in developed economies. He co-directs the law school’s Rule of Law Program, as well as the Stanford Program in International Law. Professor Heller has been a visiting professor at the European University Institute, Catholic University of Louvain, and Hong Kong University, and has served as the deputy director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he is now a senior fellow.

Professor Heller is also a senior fellow (by courtesy) at the Woods Institute for the Environment. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1979, he was a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and an attorney-advisor to the governments of Chile and Colombia.