More about Robert M. Cutler

Contents of this document:

• Academic Background
• Consulting Experience
  • Practical Skills
  • Energy Security Expertise
  • Other Expertises
• Public Profile

Academic Background

• For complete information, see the exhaustive, academically formatted curriculum vitae

Dr. Robert M. Cutler was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BSc), Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies (Gallatin Fellow) and The University of Michigan (PhD), and has held research and teaching appointments at major universities in the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland and Russia. During a dozen years exclusively in universities, in three different countries, he taught 14 different subjects in international relations, comparative politics, and political philosophy, at all levels from introductory undergraduate to graduate research seminar, making a total of 46 semester-courses. He then expanded into policy analysis and consulting, first as an Energy Security Specialist. Now senior research fellow in the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Carleton University, Canada, he consults privately in a variety of fields ranging from organizational design of international institutions to advice on Caspian Sea region investments to redaction of expert affadavits and testimony on human rights conditions in Central Asia.

Consulting Experience

• For complete information, see the list of résumés and skills inventories

Practical Skills

Beyond research and writing, Dr. Cutler’s demonstrated skills include:

• Negotiation and strategy (e.g., resolving bureaucratic conflicts over decision and implementation of institutional program development, chairing delegations to bilateral meetings),
• Design and implementation (designing organizational communications channels, implementing mentoring programs),
• Planning and execution (organizing workshops and conferences, planning and administering international collaborative projects), and
• Evaluation and instruction (program evaluation, teaching and mentoring, supervision of research).

He has worked with governments, NGOs, think tanks international institutions, and the private sector on a wide range of issues, producing briefings and analyses under consultancies with the EastWest Institute (New York), the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels) and the Policy Research Initiative (Ottawa) amongst many others, as well as confidential work in the private sector.

Energy Security Expertise

As an expert in energy security and geo-economics, he has experience not only as senior researcher at a university-based research center responsible for energy issues, but also:

• Consulting to international energy firms, co-operating with international institutions, and informally advising governments,
• Framing policy research problems for results-oriented answers and leading researchers as a team player, and
• Producing quality research publications in international scholarly and policy journals as well as under private commission.

His geographic expertise includes:

• Europe  [ research — blog ]  including various regional specialties under the EU/NATO area (and cooperating states) as well as institutional studies,
• Russia  [ research — blog ]  spanning the Empire of All the Russias, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Russian Federation, and
• Central Eurasia  [ research — blog ]  and its sub-regions, especially (but not only) the South Caucasus and Central and Southwest Asia.

With practical experience in Euro-Caspian energy development, he has written and spoken on a plethora of issues related to energy cooperation, ethnic conflict and international security and cooperation over the whole of Eurasia (also including South and East Asia) and its varied sub-regions.

Other Expertises

As a consultant, Dr. Cutler has a demonstrated track record in not only in energy security and geo-economics but also in organizational design and decision-making analysis, immigration questions particularly human rights in various countries in Eurasia (and Central Asia in particular), and also communications and media analysis. As an international public intellectual, he is published in major newspapers and on the Internet, and is solicited for interviews by national and international media. He is entirely at ease in all milieux and noted for his ability to recognize significant developments in international economics and politics before they become generally evident.

Public Profile

Dr. Cutler is on the editorial boards of scholarly and policy journals, has been on the executive boards of policy and scholarly organizations, has served as an NGO representative to the U.N. General Assembly’s Economic and Social Council, has given invited testimony to the House of Commons (Canada) and speeches at U.N.-sponsored and other international conferences, and is routinely invited to Energy Charter Secretariat conferences.

In nearly 30 years of professional life, he has made nearly 150 professional presentations to conventions, conferences, seminars, and workshops, including invited keynote addresses; published nearly 50 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and edited two books; and produced many dozens of briefer situational and policy analyses, for both private and public distribution, including op-ed opinion columns. His commentaries are regularly translated for republication into other languages, including French and Russian, in which two he is also fluent.