Sylvana Habdank-Kołaczkowska is the project director of Nations in Transit, Freedom House's annual survey of democratic governance from Central Europe to Central Asia. She serves as a Central Europe analyst for both Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press. Before joining Freedom House, Sylvana worked as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Cold War Studies, a peer-reviewed quarterly based on archival research in the former communist world. She holds an MA from Harvard University in Regional Studies of Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She is fluent in Polish and French, and proficient in Russian and Persian.