Paul Sonne, a native of Loudonville, New York, graduated from Columbia University in 2007 with a degree in Russian language and literature. At Columbia, he founded The Birch, the first undergraduate journal of Eastern European and Eurasian culture in America. The editor-in-chief of the Columbia Political Review, Paul has worked as an intern at the United Nations, New York magazine and the Moscow Bureau of the New York Times. In 2006, he received an Eesti-Eurasia Fellowship, which allowed him to spend the summer in Tbilisi, Georgia as a fellow in the Presidential Administration of Mikheil Saakashvili. He won first place in the 2003 National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest and second place in the 2004 competition. At Oxford, Paul is pursuing a degree in Russian and Eastern European studies.