short bio:
Perry Sherouse works at MITRE. Previously he served as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Loyola University Chicago, Brown University, Princeton University, Oberlin College, and the University of Michigan.

Trained as a linguistic and cultural anthropologist, his academic research is geographically based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Despite the decline of Russian language use in Tbilisi since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian remains influential as a language of technical skill and interethnic communication. In auto repair shops, weightlifting training halls, cell phone retail kiosks, and movie theaters, many Georgians rationalize using Russian language in preference to Georgian language with evaluative terms such as “quality,” “ease,” and “comfort.”