Richard D. Brecht has frequently been a visiting professor of Russian linguistics and second language acquisition at Bryn Mawr since 1981. He is currently the Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland (the first government-funded University Affiliated Research Center devoted to language), where he has been involved since its founding in 2003. Having received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in Slavic Languages and Literatures, he is also professor of Russian at the University of Maryland and visiting professor at Bryn Mawr College. Dr. Brecht has been a principal in the founding of other national organizations and projects: American Councils for International Education/ACTR-ACCELS (for which he serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees), LangNet (the Language Network), the National Council of Organizations of Less Commonly Taught Languages, Project EELIAS (Evaluation of Exchange, Language, International and Area Studies), and Project ICONS (International Communication and Negotiation Simulations). He also served as a principal in the development of the National Foreign Language Center, where he served as director from 1999 to 2003. Dr. Brecht has authored numerous books and articles on language policy, second language acquisition, and Slavic and Russian linguistics; and he has received rewards from a number of national and international organizations in the language field.