Staff

Brian Mandell > Faculty Chair >
Brian Mandell is the Faculty Chair of the Kokkalis Program. He is lecturer in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. His current teaching and research addresses the theory and practice of negotiation, emphasizing third-party facilitation and consensus building in protracted policy disputes. He writes about international mediation and is completing a book on new approaches to conflict management. Before coming to Harvard, he taught at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. Previously he was a strategic analyst for the Canadian Department of National Defense, specializing in U.N. peacekeeping and the implementation of arms control. A Pew Faculty Fellow and Senior Research Associate at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Mandell holds a PhD from the University of Toronto.
E-mail: Brian_Mandell@harvard.edu

Elaine Papoulias > Director >
Elaine Papoulias received a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a Master in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University. Papoulias, who has served at the Kokkalis Program since 1999, oversees the strategic operation and development of the Kokkalis Program and promotes Southeast Europe related initiatives throughout Harvard. She also contributes to the development of advancement strategies related to external university relationships and priorities, particularly those with global scope.

Papoulias’ academic training and research focused on international affairs, law and security, Southeastern Europe and the Middle East. Prior to her post at Harvard, Papoulias worked as a public affairs consultant at the Rasky-Baerlein Group, where she devised and implemented communications and crisis management strategies, as well political, grass-roots and public information campaigns for corporate, non-profit and public sector clients. Papoulias has served as a U.S. State Department fellow at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, a consultant at Cambridge Energy Research Associates and as a training advisor to the Kuwaiti Foreign Service. Her research interests include democratization in Southeastern Europe and the East Mediterranean; Turkish and Iranian politics; and media, politics, and public opinion. She speaks Greek fluently and has working knowledge of Persian. She serves a co-chair of the Southeastern Europe Study Group at the Center for European Studies.
E-mail: Elaine_Papoulias@harvard.edu

Mikhala Stein > Associate Director >
Mikhala Stein received a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and a Bachelors Degree in International Relations from Wellesley College. Prior to joining the Kokkalis Program, Ms. Stein worked for a negotiation and alliance management consulting firm, where she worked with clients to consistently achieve better negotiated results, to build and manage stronger partner relationships, and to successfully execute strategies that depend on effective collaboration. Ms. Stein’s professional background has also included work in the fields of international development and conflict management with research and non-governmental organizations based in the United Kingdom, Latvia and the Russian Federation. Her professional interests include the political, economic and social aspects of post-communist transitions; corporate social responsibility; public relations/public affairs.
E-mail: mstein@ksg.harvard.edu

Ilyana Sawka> Program Coordinator >
Ms. Sawka received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History from Yale University. Her academic training and research focused on issues of culture, national identity, and migration in modern Eastern and Southeastern Europe. While at Yale, she was actively involved with the Hellenic Studies Program; she also completed coursework at the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute, and pursued language training in Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Ms. Sawka's interests include the Black Sea region, language policy, and the intersections of politics and popular culture; she has professional experience in event planning and public relations.
E-mail:Ilyana Sawka@ksg.harvard.edu

Andrew Hall > Staff Assistant >
Andrew Hall received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Latin from Oberlin College. In addition to Latin language and literature, his other academic interests while at Oberlin were ancient Greek, philosophy, and film studies. Andrew has a professional background in events as a conference manager at The Ohio State University. Before joining The Kokkalis Program , Andrew worked as a program manager for a fundraising department in the private offices of Ambassador Swanee Hunt building databases and coordinating administrative support.