- Assistant Director, European Union Studies Center
Research Interests
- Comparative Politics
- Democratization
- Civil Society
- Philanthropy
- Central and Eastern Europe
Education
- M.Phil. in Political Science, the Graduate Center, CUNY
- M.S. in Comparative Politics, the London School of Economics and Political Science
- B.A. in Political Science and Communications Studies, the University of Michigan
Contact
Merrill Sovner directs the programs of the European Union Studies Center. She has over 20 years' professional experience in international philanthropy, program development, and evaluation with the Open Society Foundations, the Atlantic Philanthropies, and the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the co-author of a recent research report on the long-term impact of philanthropic funding for civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. Merrill is working on a doctoral dissertation in political science on the institutional pressures on civil society organizations in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Bulgaria. She is the proud daughter and granddaughter of first generation Eastern European immigrants who were educated at CUNY’s colleges.