Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 and vice provost and dean of research Ann Arvin announced Wednesday that Stanford political scientist and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul ’86 M.A. ’86, will lead Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), according to the institute’s website.

McFaul will take over the position in January from Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar Ph.D. ’00, who was elected as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court on Tuesday.

McFaul, a Stanford political science department faculty member since 1994, joined the Obama administration as special assistant to the President for three years and senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council at the White House. According to the institute’s website, he later served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014.

McFaul has previously been involved with the FSI, serving as its deputy director from 2006 to 2009 and as director of FSI’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) from 2005 to 2009.

He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Russian and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. McFaul later completed his D. Phil. in International Relations from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1991.

Contact Sam Premutico at samprem ‘at’ stanford.edu.