Prof. Burds completed his Ph.D. in 1990 in Russian and Soviet history. He taught at the University of Rochester for five years, and joined the NU faculty in 1998. The recipient of numerous grants and awards–and a finalist for the Excellence in Teaching Award in both 2004 and 2007–Professor Burds has published widely on the history of the Soviet secret police and Soviet espionage during the early Cold War. In 2007, he published a study tracking Soviet infiltration of foreign espionage networks in the 1930s. Currently, he is finishing a book manuscript on espionage and nationalism in Soviet Ukraine, 1944-1950.