Center Administration

Vesko Garčević, Director

Vesko Garčević is Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies. Garčević served as the Ambassador of Montenegro in Brussels (NATO) and Vienna (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – OSCE and other International Organizations). He was a Montenegrin Ambassador to Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. During his diplomatic career he held important positions at the challenging political time of the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and democratic transition of Montenegro. After Montenegro regained independence in 2006, he served as the first Montenegrin Ambassador to Austria and the OSCE. He has outstanding knowledge of multilateral issues, especially in the field of European Security.

Ambassador Garčević participated in prestigious international conferences on security such as German Marshall Fund’s Brussels Forum, Munich Security Conference and Halifax International Security Forum. With his qualifications he contributed as the panelist to many conferences and seminars about European security, security of South East Europe and Western Balkans. He also participated in many high-level meetings, including NATO Summits, UN General Assembly meetings and ministerial conferences. He was interviewed or quoted by numerous internationally renowned media outlets such as BBC, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Voice of America etc. He participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program in 2004 and was awarded Honorary Citizen Certificate by the State of Texas.

Ambassador Garčević co-authored a book about the relations between Serbia and Montenegro: Montenegro and Serbia: A Velvet Divorce?(Bloomsbury Academic) which will be released in February 2025. This is the first comprehensive analysis of the often divergent history between Serbia and Montenegro in the tumultuous period between 1988 and 2023.

Ambassador Garčević’s areas of expertise include multilateral diplomacy, European security, EU enlargement and NATO open door policy, democratic transition in Eastern and South-East Europe, the Western Balkans, and diplomacy of small states in global affairs. For a full bio and publication list, please visit Amb. Garčević’s profile on the Pardee School’s webpage.

Elizabeth Amrien, Assistant Director

Elizabeth Amrien (BA, Fordham University; MDiv, Yale University; MBA, Boston University) manages the programs and finances for the Center for the Study of Europe and the Center for Latin American Studies at Boston University. Elizabeth’s responsibilities include outreach and publicity, program development, grant writing, and oversight of other new and ongoing initiatives, including an active Visiting Researcher program. Previously, she served as managing director of the Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University (IHS), where for eight years she oversaw the strategic operation and development of the institute’s programs.

Since 2002, Elizabeth has organized over 700 public and scholarly events (lectures, panel discussions, exhibits, film screenings, and international conferences) at Boston University, featuring prominent politicians, policy-makers, artists, activists, writers, and intellectuals. In the spring of 2015, she authored her fourth successful grant proposal to the European Commission Delegation in Washington DC, for a two-year project entitled “Getting to Know Europe: EU Future(s),” the goal of which was to launch a longer-term conversation on the future of Europe, what “Europe” means, and what its next steps ought to be.

Elizabeth’s personal interests lie at the intersection of politics and culture. She is an impassioned advocate for food justice and in 2009 organized an international symposium on the Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives, highlighting sustainable, conscious food politics.