Janine Wedel, three-time Fulbright fellow and 2001 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order recipient, has studied foreign policy in the post-Cold War era for more than 20 years, focusing especially on Eastern Europe.

The author of three books - Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe, The Unplanned Society: Poland During and After Communism and The Private Poland: An Anthropologist Looks at Everyday Life - Wedel has a fascination with foreign policy that began while she was a student in Poland in the 1970s. She continued her connection with Eastern Europe, conducting eight years of field research there, and has produced three PBS documentaries on the region.

A graduate of Bethel College, Newton, Kan., Wedel holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of California-Berkeley, a master's degree in anthropology from Indiana University, and a bachelor's degree in history and the social sciences. She currently is associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Director of Research Development at the Ridgway Center at the University of Pittsburgh.