Laura Linderman is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. She is an observer of developments in the Eurasia region, and her analysis has appeared in Foreign Policy, the American Interest, the Atlantic Council, the Anthropology of East Europe Review, Liberty Institute, and the Global Post and broadcast by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America, Huffington Post, Rustavi2, Imedi TV, and TV Pirveli.
Linderman’s research focuses on Georgian politics, economics, and foreign relations. Previously, she served as the Eurasia Center’s associate director. In that position, she developed and shaped analytic and intellectual work on Georgia and supported work on Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan and executed related event programming. She maintains relationships with Georgian government, opposition, civil society representatives, and business leaders and the wider Washington policy community.
Linderman is also a senior manager at Splunk, a machine data software company. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council in 2012, she was as a Peace Corps volunteer in western Georgia, where she taught English at the Pedagogical Industrial College of Ozurgeti and served as president of the national Student Women Alliance Network. In 2002 to 2003, she interned at Georgia’s premier think tank, Liberty Institute, where she examined corruption in higher education at Tbilisi State University and supported the Institute’s program to draw attention to discrimination against religious minorities.
Originally from Minnesota, Linderman holds a BA in anthropology and German language and literature from Wellesley College and an MA from Indiana University in anthropology. Her master’s thesis is on gender in rural western Georgia and is based on fieldwork conducted there in 2009.
Linderman is a Transcaucasian Trail Association board member. She speaks Georgian and German.