ABOUT CRRC
- Brief History
- Staff
- Advisory Committee
- Donors and Partners
- In the Media
- Photo Gallery
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Staff
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Koba Turmanidze
Country Director
Koba Turmanidze earned an MPA from the American University (Washington, DC) and a M.A. in Political Science from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary). He also holds a diploma in history from Tbilisi State University. Since 2005 he has held the position of Assistant Professor at Tbilisi State University, where he has taught economies in transition, research methods and network analysis courses in the Department of Political Science and the Center for Social Sciences.
Prior to joining CRRC, Koba worked as a Senior Analyst for Transparency International - Georgia; he has held administrative positions at Eurasia Foundation - Georgia, the Georgia Governance and Civil Society Project, and the Parliament of Georgia. Koba also taught at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA) and was an International Policy Fellow at the Center for Policy Studies (Budapest, Hungary). Koba's research interests include structural analysis of economic transition and social movements.
E-mail: koba@crrccenters.org |
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Tinatin Zurabishvili
Research Director
Dr. Tinatin Zurabishvili is the Research Director at CRRC. Since 1999, she has taught B.A. and M.A. courses in sociology, focusing on research methods, at Telavi State University and Tbilisi State University Center for Social Sciences, where she was a Civic Education Project (CEP) Local Faculty Fellow (2001-2003) and Academic Fellowship Program Returning Scholar (2005-2006). In the spring semesters between 2004 and 2007 she was an OSI Faculty Development Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Sociology. Her academic publications focus on social research methods, sociology of transition and sociology of the media.
Prior to teaching in Georgia, between 1999 and 2001 Dr. Zurabishvili served as junior researcher for Yale University's project, Poverty, Ethnicity and Gender in Eastern Europe during the Market Transition. Dr. Zurabishvili also worked for five years as a sociologist at the Russian Center for Public Opinion and Market Research (now the Levada Center), where she worked on the Russian Public Opinion Monitor. Dr. Zurabishvili holds her Ph.D. in the sociology of journalism from Moscow M. Lomonosov State University (1999).
E-mail: tina@crrccenters.org
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Kristina Vacharadze
Program Manager
Kristina Vacharadze worked as the South Caucasus Regional Coordinator for the Academic Fellowship Program at OSGF during the years 2004-2006. Prior to this she was the Caucasus Program Assistant at the Civic Education Project; Research Assistant for a team which was evaluating the micro-credit activities of FINCA and Constanta and a teacher in the New School. Her educational background includes a M.A. in gender studies from Central European University and a B.A. from Tbilisi State University, Faculty of Western European Languages and Literature.
E-mail: kristina@crrccenters.org |
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Giorgi Babunashvili
Researcher
Giorgi Babunashvili holds M.A. in International Relations from Tbilisi State University. Prior to joining CRRC, he worked as a Lead Research Associate in a team for evaluation of the Ilia Chavchavadze Program for Reforming and Strengthening Georgian Secondary Education System. Giorgi also worked as Research Assistant for Centre for Social Studies and Administrative Officer in small business advocating project in Union Business League. Giorgi's research background includes 2007 scholarship from Heinrich Böll Foundation and joint research with ESI. His research interests are political parties and processes of political transition in post-Soviet societies.
E-mail: giorgi@crrccenters.org |
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Mariam Kobaladze
Research Associate
Mariam Kobaladze holds M.A. in Social Sciences from Tbilisi State University, Center for Social Sciences and B.A. in English language from Ilia Chavchavadze State University. In 2008, she went through the summer course in political and economic systems at the American Institute for Political and Economic Systems (AIPES) in Prague, Czech Republic.
Prior to joining CRRC, Mariam has worked in the long-term observation team of NDI (National Democratic Institute for International Affairs) for parliamentary elections 2008. She was NDI's parliamentary intern for one year serving at the Speaker's Office. Mariam worked at the English-language newspaper Georgia Today both as a contributor and as an executive editor. Her research interests include political and public institutions in transitional countries and democracy development.
E-mail: mariam.kobaladze@crrccenters.org |
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Keti Japaridze
Program Associate/Finance Associate
Prior to joining CRRC's Georgia office, Keti worked as an administrative/program assistant for Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Before this Keti Japaridze worked for Philip Morris Management Services as an administrative assistant. She is a graduate of Tbilisi State University.
E-mail: keti@crrccenters.org |
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Nana Berikashvili
Librarian
Nana Berikashvili is a graduate of the Department of Western European Languages and Literature at Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. Her professional experience includes working as a librarian at the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia in different departments including the Department of Culture, the Department of Georgian Language Publications Archive, and the Department of Kartvelology.
E-mail: nanab@crrccenters.org |
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Tamuna Khoshtaria
Research Associate
Tamuna holds her B.A. and M.A. in Social Science from Tbilisi State University. During her M.A. she was awarded a scholarship and studied at the Humboldt-University Berlin for one year where she conducted a qualitative research in family sociology.
Before becoming a research associate, she was a Junior Fellow at CRRC. Prior to CRRC she conducted research for various organizations. Her research interests are social issues and intercultural comparisons.
E-mail: tamuna@crrccenters.org |
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David Sichinava
GIS and Database Analyst
David Sichinava is a PhD student at Tbilisi State University, faculty of social and political sciences. His research interests are located in the field of Human Geography, especially in spatial analysis of electoral behavior and in development of GIS applications for social and political sciences.
In 2008-2009 David worked as an assistant in a research project "Presidential and Parliamentary elections of Georgia" implemented by CRRC, National Democratic Institute (NDI) and TSU department of Human Geography.
E-mail: david@crrccenters.org |
Regional Staff
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Tinatin Ambroladze
Regional Research Associate and Contacts Officer
Tinatin holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from the Georgian-American University in Tbilisi with a major in Finance. Prior to joining CRRC's regional office, she worked for the Asian Development Bank in the social development field and was involved in conducting a nationwide household survey for which she helped to write the 2010 Social and Gender Development report. Additionally, Tiko was previously employed at Saferworld as a Finance and Administration Officer and was a prior intern at the National Bank of Georgia. Tiko was also one of five junior fellows selected for CRRC-Georgia's first Junior Research Fellowship Program in 2009.
E-mail: tiko@crrccenters.org |
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Natia Mestvirishvili
Regional Research and Outreach Coordinator
Natia holds a B.A. in General Psychology and a M.A. in Social and Personality Psychology from Tbilisi State University. She recently graduated with a M.Sc. in Social Research from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. During her studies in Edinburgh, she focused on qualitative research methods including data collection, research design, as well as the analysis of narrative, text and discourse. Her thesis was about Georgian fairy tales' influence on children's moral development. Natia has recently completed a second M.A. in Global Development and Social Justice from St. John's University, where she focused on street children in Georgia.
Natia has worked at World Vision Georgia for three years on a program entitled "Children in Especially Difficult Circumstances" where she was involved in research about street children in Western Georgia. Having also worked at ACT Group in Tbilisi, Natia has experience leading focus groups, training interviewers, coding interviews, as well as analyzing quantitative and qualitative data.
E-mail: natia@crrccenters.org |
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