Dr. Sullivan earned his PhD in Political Science from The George Washington University (2014) in Washington, DC. Prior to joining Nazarbayev University, he worked as an instructor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Sullivan is a comparativist and specializes in the politics of the countries of the former Soviet Union and Central Asia/Afghanistan. Dr. Sullivan’s research interests include Central Asian security issues, state failure and state building, energy politics, insurgency and war, Russian politics and foreign affairs, and U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia since independence.