Gavin Helf

Dr. Gavin Helf currently teaches classes on the fall of the Soviet Union and on contemporary Central Asia. He was a senior expert on Central Asia for the U.S. Institute of Peace from 2019-2025. From 2009-2019, he worked as a Senior Democracy and Governance Advisor in the USAID Asia and Middle East Bureaus, supporting democracy promotion and countering violent extremism portfolios. From 2007 through 2009, he worked at USAID/Iraq, managing and helping design much of the democracy and governance, community peace-building, and civilian assistance portfolio there during “the surge.” He studied, lived, and worked in the USSR, and its successor states from 1984 through 2007, mostly in Central Asia and the Caucasus, with non-governmental organizations and with USAID. From 2005-2007, he was a democracy and governance advisor at USAID/Armenia. From 2000-2002, he served as a director of Grant Programs at the Eurasia Foundation. From 1997-2000, he was Central Asia Regional Director for the International Research & Exchanges Board based in Almaty.