Staff

Dr. Koba Turmanidze

Director
Koba Turmanidze has been working for CRRC-Georgia since 2007. Koba holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from Central European University. He earned an MPA from American University (Washington, DC) and an M.A. in Political Science from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary). He also holds a diploma in history from Tbilisi State University.

From 2005-2011, he was an Assistant Professor at Tbilisi State University, where he taught comparative politics, economies in transition, research methods and applied statistics courses in the Department of Political Science and the Center for Social Sciences.

Before joining CRRC-Georgia, Koba worked in several civil society organizations, as well as in civil service. His research interests include authoritarianism, regime change and voting behavior.

Dr. David Sichinava

Research Director

David Sichinava has been working for CRRC since 2009 on various positions. Currently, his work focuses on the development of evidence-based policy documents as well as on statistical modeling of survey and spatial data. David holds his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Human Geography from Tbilisi State University (TSU). In the fall semester of 2016 he was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Behavioral Sciences of the University of Colorado Boulder. Apart from his work at CRRC-Georgia, David is an assistant professor at Tbilisi State University.


David’s research interests are focused on political geography, urban theory, election modeling and GIS applications in social sciences. He teaches introductory and advanced research methods classes at TSU and supervises graduate student research papers at TSU and Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA).

Kristina Vacharadze

Programs Director
Kristina Vacharadze joined CRRC-Georgia in 2006 as a Program Manager. In 2009, she was promoted to Programs Director. Kristina manages a variety of research projects. She also participates in questionnaire development, and in qualitative and quantitative analyses.

Kristina holds a bachelor’s degree in Western European Languages and Literature from Iv. Javakhishvili State University and a master’s degree in Gender Studies from Central European University. Prior to joining CRRC, Kristina worked as the South Caucasus Regional Coordinator for the Academic Fellowship Program at OSGF. Previously, she was the Caucasus Program Assistant at the Civic Education Project, a research assistant for a team which evaluated the micro-credit activities of FINCA and Constanta, and a teacher at New School.

Giorgi Babunashvili

Senior Policy Analyst
Giorgi Babunashvili joined CRRC-Georgia in 2008. He is a researcher and works on survey sampling, dataset cleaning, development of research instruments, data procession and analysis. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Comparative Politics at Ilia State University, department of Political Sciences. He holds an M.A. in International Relations from Tbilisi State University and has taken courses in survey sampling and statistics at University of Michigan and University of Ljubljana.

Prior to joining CRRC, Giorgi worked as a Lead Research Associate in a team evaluating the Ilia Chavchavadze Program for Reforming and Strengthening Georgian Secondary Education System, as a Research Assistant for Centre for Social Studies and a Project Administrative Officer in Union Business League.

His research interests are political parties and processes of political transition in post-Soviet societies.

Dr. Tamar Khoshtaria

Senior Researcher
Tamar Khoshtaria has been working for CRRC-Georgia since 2009. She started as a Junior Fellow (as part of the JFP program) and then became a researcher. Now she is a senior researcher. Tamar works on questionnaire development and qualitative and quantitative data analysis. She participates in designing research projects.

Tamar holds a PhD in Sociology from the Tbilisi State University, where she teaches quantitative and qualitative research methods. She holds her B.A. and M.A. in Social Science (Sociology) from the same university. During her M.A. she was awarded a scholarship and studied at the Humboldt-University Berlin for one year where she conducted qualitative research in family sociology.

Before joining CRRC, she conducted research projects for various organizations. Her research interests are the values of young people, social and religious issues as well as intercultural comparisons.

Mariam Kobaladze

Senior Researcher
Mariam Kobaladze has been working at CRRC-Georgia since 2009. First, she joined the organization as a participant of the Junior Fellowship Program (JFP). Later, she became a research associate and a researcher. She acted as a Communications Manager between 2018 and 2020, and since 2021 is a Senior Researcher, combining both communication works as well as research design and analysis.

Mariam Kobaladze holds a B.A. in English language from Ilia State University and an M.A. in Social and Political Sciences from Tbilisi State University, Center for Social Sciences.

Prior to joining CRRC, Mariam worked with a long-term observation team for parliamentary elections in 2008. She was NDI's parliamentary intern for one year, serving at the Speaker's Office. Mariam also worked at the English-language newspaper Georgia Today, both as a contributor and as an executive editor. Her research interests include the influence of media on public opinion, disinformation, and the development of democracy in transitional countries.

Anano Kipiani

Policy Analyst

Anano Kipiani took up the Policy Analyst position at CRRC-Georgia in 2016. Her main duties and responsibilities include determining impediments to agricultural insurance uptake in Georgia, providing input on research design, conducting interviews with key informants in the public and private sectors, and supporting qualitative and quantitative data analysis.


Anano holds a Master's Degree in Economics from ISET - International School of Economics at TSU. Her master’s thesis discussed the state of food security and its measurement methodologies in Georgia. She also holds a Bachelor's Degree in Informatics from TSU. Before joining CRRC, Anano worked on USAID’s Project on Georgia's Restoring Efficiency to Agriculture Production (REAP). She is a co-founder of the organization “High Bird Solutions”, which implements projects with special focuses on agriculture and development.


Her main research interests include the agricultural, social and education sectors.

Dustin Gilbreath

Non-resident senior fellow
Dustin joined CRRC in 2014, as an international fellow. From 2018 to 2022, he served as CRRC-Georgia's Deputy Research Director, after previously being a research consultant and policy analyst. He is currently a non-resident senior fellow.

Prior to joining CRRC, he worked as an English teacher, freelance writer, editor and translator, and then as a lecturer in tourism geography at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University. Dustin holds an MA in Political Science from Central European University and a BA in Philosophy from Skidmore College.

His research interests include applications of matching in evaluation contexts, quasi-experimental design, and political communications. Dustin speaks English and Georgian.

Eto Gagunashvili

Researcher
Eto Gagunashvili has been working at CRRC-Georgia since 2016. First, she joined the organization as a Junior Fellow under the Junior Fellowship Program (JFP). Later, she became a junior researcher, and a researcher. 

Eto mainly works on research instrument development and qualitative and quantitative data analysis. She is also involved in ODK form development and fieldwork management procedures.

Eto holds B.A. in Social Sciences and M.A. in Sociology from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU).

Elene Ergeshidze

Researcher
Elene Ergeshidze joined CRRC-Georgia in 2018 as part of the Junior Fellowship Program and since 2021 continues her work as a researcher.

Currently Elene works on qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Moreover, she is involved data collection management, fieldwork planning and preparation. She works on the development of research instruments, programming of questionnaires in ODK form and data cleaning.

Elene holds BA in sociology from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) and Master in Public Administration from the joint program of the TSU and German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer.

Elene’s research interests include public policy issues, including the development of local self-government, and civic engagement.

Makhare Atchaidze

Researcher
Makhare Atchaidze has been working at CRRC-Georgia since 2018. He joined the organization within the Junior Fellowship Program.

Makhare mostly works on qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis, including fieldwork management, ODK form programming and data cleaning. He also formats reports and creates infographics, posters, and other visual/printing materials.

Makhare holds B.A. in Sociology and M.A. in Sociology of Culture and Media from Tbilisi State University. He is currently studying for his PhD in Sociology of Culture and Media at the TSU.

Makhare's research interests include ethnic identity, nationalism, and migration issues.

Nino Zubashvili

Researcher
Nino Zubashvili joined CRRC-Georgia in 2020 as a researcher. She is engaged in both qualitative and quantitative research design, data analysis and reporting, and applied policy analysis.

Over the years, Nino has worked mostly for the civil society sector on social research, monitoring and evaluation, policy analysis, and development programs around the issues of civic development, peace processes, youth and volunteering, gender, and migration. She has previous experience of working with CRRC-Georgia team on various positions as well. Nino holds an MSc in Development Studies from Lund University, an MA in Political Science from Tbilisi State University and a BA in European Studies from Ilia State University.

Her research interests include civic participation, attitudinal effects on minority integration and peace processes, as well as methodological issues in social sciences.

Givi Silagadze

Researcher

Givi Silagadze joined the CRRC-Georgia team in 2021. Previously, he worked as a junior policy analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics. His main duties and responsibilities at CRRC-Georgia include quantitative and qualitative research and analysis.


Givi holds an MA in Political Science from Central European University, an MA in Diplomacy and International Politics from Tbilisi State University and a BA in Political Science from Tbilisi State University. During his MA studies, he specialized in political research methodology and social analysis.


His major research interests include democratization and its challenges, parties and party systems, and political research methodology.

Tinatin Bandzeladze

Researcher

Tinatin Bandzeladze is a PhD of Applied Social Psychology at Tbilisi State University. As an exchange program student, she studied for a doctoral degree at Coruna University, Spain. She holds B.A and M.A. in psychology from Tbilisi State University. She is a visiting lecturer at TSU and GIPA (Georgian Institute of Public Affairs), as well as a trainer at the Training Center of Justice. Since 2015, she has worked in the law enforcement system, including on a position of the Head of the Department of Psychology, where her work has been related to psychologicalresearch and assessment, educational programs in legal psychology, and also investigative process related to juveniles in contact with the law.


Her research interests include issues related to the psychosocial factors of deviation, juvenile justice, legal culture, and socialization.

 

Salome Dolidze

Researcher
Salome Dolidze holds a Master's degree in Sociology from the Tbilisi State University and has over 5 years’ experience in the research field. Salome's research interests include public policy, organizational development, youth and gender related issues. In addition to her research activities, Salome has extensive experience of working in public and non-governmental sectors. She actively participated in public policy development and implementation processes, performed analytical work, developed monitoring and evaluation systems. Also, she has been involved in stakeholder engagement and communication activities and worked with local and international organizations to design and implement collaborative projects.

Keti Japaridze

Operations Manager
Keti Japaridze has been working at CRRC-Georgia since 2006. She provides support to all the organization's activities. Prior to joining CRRC-Georgia, Keti worked as an administrative/program assistant for Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Before this, she was an administrative assistant at the Philip Morris Management Services. She is a graduate of Tbilisi State University.

Elza Narimanishvili

Admin-Finance Manager

Elza Narimanishvili joined CRRC-Georgia in June 2013. Before joining CRRC, Elza worked as a Finance Manager at Save the Children International. She has more than ten years of experience in financial management, accounting, taxation budgeting, and donor reporting. She has managed several international donor funded grants and sub-grants.


Elza holds a Masters’ degree in Philology from Iv. Javakhishvili State University, and a diploma in English Language and Literature from the same university. 


In 2003, Elza was awarded certificate of International Accounting Standards and Tax Systems by the Georgian Federation of Professional Accountants and Auditors (GFPAA).


She has undergone several certified trainings and courses in Georgia and abroad.

Nino Stavridi

Communications and Development Officer
Prior to becoming the Regional Communications and Development Officer for Eurasia Partnership Foundation/CRRC Regional Network, Nino worked as Regional Executive Secretary for EPF/CRRC Network and as Executive Assistant to the President for EPF. Before joining EPF in 2008, Nino worked as Head of the International Department at Georgian Trade Unions Confederation, and as an Assistant to the Economic Attaché at the Embassy of Greece in Tbilisi.

Nino has a Masters’ Degree in Public Relations from Georgian Technical University and a Bachelor's Degree in Greek Language and Literature from Tbilisi State University. Her Masters’ thesis is about the role of media in the formation of public opinion. Nino has done post-graduate studies in both Greece and Cyprus.