Chris Conway is a REECA master's student from London, UK. Chris gradated with congratulatory first class honors from the University of Oxford in 2020, where he specialized in the history of Russian imperial borderlands. At Oxford, Chris received the Atkinson Prize and the Gibbs Book Prize. His research interests cover Russian and Soviet imperial thought and grand strategy, particularly that relating to Central Asia and the Caucasus, and the modern histories of those regions. Having worked in the private sector with connections to Russia and the CIS, Chris is also interested in how authoritarian regimes use international finance to consolidate and legitimize themselves.