Vera was a visiting researcher during the spring and winter quarters of 2009 CDDRL. She was also a doctoral candidate in the department of political and social sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. In her thesis, she compared and explained the active engagement of Mediterranean non-member countries in cooperation with the European Union (EU) and its democracy promotion efforts. During her time at CDDRL, she finished the first draft of her thesis and coordinate the grant proposal for a joint research project, with Professors Stephen D. Krasner of Stanford University and Tanja A. Börzel of Freie Universität Berlin, on the "governance export" of international actors to areas of limited statehood.

Since 2005, she has been working as a research associate at the Center for European Integration at the Freie Universität Berlin, where she researches and teaches on the EU as an international actor and particularly on European neighborhood policies. She received a Master's degree in "European Studies" from the University of Osnabrück, Germany, and the "Certificat d'Etudes Politiques" from the the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Grenoble, France. Together with a colleague, she has contributed a chapter on "Comparing EU and US democracy promotion in the Mediterranean and the Newly Independent States" in a forthcoming (2009) volume edited by Amichai Magen, Michael McFaul and Thomas Risse.

Dr Wolfgang Mueller, PhD in contemporary history and Russian studies (University of Vienna), is a research associate at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Former professional affiliations include the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, Canada, and the Institute of East European History, University of Vienna. Wolfgang Mueller was a visiting fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences and a member of OSCE missions to the CIS area. He teaches Russian history and politics at the University of Vienna.

Research interests: Russian and Soviet foreign policy, international relations, the Cold War, European integration. Current research projects: continuities in Russian foreign policy behavior, the USSR/Russia and European integration; the revolutions of 1989.

Wolfgang Mueller’s book on postwar Soviet policy in Austria Die sowjetische Besatzung in Österreich 1945-1955 (2005) was awarded the Richard G. Plaschka Prize. Further publications include Sovetskaia politika v Avstrii: Dokumenty iz Rossiiskikh arkhivov (with N. Naimark, A. Suppan, G. Bordiugov eds. 2005); The Austrian State Treaty 1955: International Strategy, Legal Relevance, National Identity (with G. Stourzh, A. Suppan eds. 2005); “Stalin and Austria: New Evidence on Soviet Policy in a Secondary Theatre of the Cold War,” Cold War History 6 (2006) 1; Osteuropa vom Weltkrieg zur Wende (with M. Portmann eds. 2007); “Die UdSSR und die europäische Integration,” in From the Common Market to European Union Building (M. Gehler ed. 2009); Peaceful Coexistence or Iron Curtain? Austria, Neutrality, and Eastern Europe 1955-1989 (Forthcoming).

Dr. Mueller was a visiting scholar with the Forum on Contemporary Europe from October 2008 through March 2009.