Dr. Natalie Sabanadze is a Cyrus Vance visiting professor in International Relations at Mount Holyoke College, USA. Prior to taking up this position in August 2021, she served as head of the Georgian mission to the European Union and ambassador plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Belgium and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg since 2013. In the period of 2005-2013, she worked at the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities in The Hague, Netherlands, where she held several senior positions including head of Central and South East Europe section and later, head of the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia section.
Natalie Sabanadze earned her BA magna cum laude in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College in 1997 before obtaining her Master’s in International Relations with distinction at the London School of Economics in 1999. She then served as political officer at the US Embassy in Tbilisi. In 2005, she completed her doctorate in Politics and International Relations at Oxford University, where she was a Dulverton Scholar. She has held visiting research fellowships at the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg, Germany and at the Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao, Spain.
Dr. Sabanadze has written and lectured extensively on questions of European integration, nationalism and globalization, contemporary Russian politics and national minorities in international affairs. In 2009 she published Globalisation and Nationalism: The Cases of Georgia and Basque Country and in 2010 co-edited a volume with Francesco Palermo titled National Minorities in Inter-State Relations. Her current research focuses on the EU in the world and diplomacy of small states.