Ausra Park is an associate professor of international relations at Siena College. She received her Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of South Carolina (Columbia) and has taught students at Simmons College (in Boston, MA) and at Davidson College (Davidson, NC) during the period of 2006-2011. In 2011 she received one of the most prestigious academic awards, a Fulbright US Scholar fellowship, and spend an academic year at the Faculty of Political Science & Diplomacy, Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. She has been also awarded numerous national and international fellowships and scholarships from the Department of State Title VIII program, the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., IREX, ACTR/ACCELS, the Flemish Government, and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as competitive institutional grants for research and pedagogy.