Dr. David Abesadze is a Senior Counselor at the Embassy of Georgia to the U.S. Before this assignment he served as Deputy Director of the Political Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Senior Counselor at the Mission of Georgia to the EU, and Head of the Policy Analysis Unit of the Georgian MFA. From 2005 to 2010, he was an assistant professor at Tbilisi State University. He holds a PhD, MA, and BA from Tbilisi State University, and an MA from the Central European University. He has been a fellow of non-degree programs at Stanford and Georgetown Universities, and was a visiting scholar at George Washington University. Dr. Abesadze is the author of several publications, among which is a recent article, “Religious Systems and the Secular-Religious Cleavage: Turkey and Western Europe Compared,” and a policy paper, “Georgia’s Black Sea Policy: Forging Black Sea Identity.”