Compass

Compass is a journal of the Institute of Current World Affairs that commissions reportage and interviews about the global issues, cultural and societal trends that our fellows have researched and reported on for the past 100 years.

Dr. Scott Erich teaches anthropology at Baruch College in New York City.

I am a writer living in London and in rural France. My latest novel Waiting for A Party (Salt 2025) is told by a ninety-two-year-old woman, recalling her discovery of her sexual desires, while still longing for affection and physical intimacy.

Bryn Barnard writes and illustrates science-history books for young readers and articles for the online magazine, Compass. His book, "This Changes Everything: The Promise and Problem of Inventions," is forthcoming from Knopf in 2027.

co-editor of Compass, the Substack journal of the Institute of Current World Affairs

Robert Coalson is a retired journalist who spent more than 20 years reporting on Russia, the former Soviet Union, and the former Soviet bloc for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

I write mainly about Russia and run the Institute of Current World Affairs.

Wall Street Journal correspondent ok Latin America later focused on immigration and globalism from US posting. Retired from WSJ in 2014 to join the UN’s international organization for migration (IOM) in Switzerland

Suren Avanesyan is a GW Elliott School Lecturer and Visiting Scholar at Wisconsin Law. Formerly USAID’s Democracy & Governance Chief, he founded the Washington Dialogue linking U.S. policymakers and Russian civil society.

Susan Brind Morrow’s recent collections of poetry and translation will be published with Sowell Collection Books and Christine Burgin/New Directions in 2026 susanbrindmorrow.com

Paul A. Rahe holds The Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College. He has written widely on the history of self-government and on grand strategy.

Born in the U.S.A, based in Paris, France, Douglas Lyon is a television producer / director. In the world of Japanese television, he is known as an “Africa specialist”. https://www.excelman.jpn.com/en.index.html

Writer and Correspondent for the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Holds a master’s degree in Islamic-Christian Relations Studies from St. Joseph’s University in Beirut.

Andrei Prudnikow is a Russian political scientist and former journalist based in Lisbon, where he researches conspiracy narratives and political discourse in contemporary Russia.

Anna Badkhen’s new essay collection, To See Beyond, is forthcoming in April 2026. Badkhen is a Guggenheim Fellow and an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania.

Born in Moscow in 1967, published about 120 books of verse, fiction and non-fiction. Leaves and teaches in Rochester, Nee York. Three marriages, three children, about ten different Universities.