Dr. Sarah-Masha Fainberg is a Senior Researcher and Head of the Great Powers Research Program at Tel Aviv University’s Elrom Center for Air and Space Studies. Her areas of expertise include the involvement of Russia and China in the Middle East, defense and security in the post-Soviet space with a focus on Ukraine, and air and space strategy.

She also lectures in the MA Program for Security and Diplomacy Studies at Tel Aviv University and has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she taught courses on Israeli affairs and international security. Dr. Fainberg has held research and teaching positions at Columbia University, Georgetown University, Sciences Po (Paris), and St. Petersburg State University in Russia.

Beyond academia, she has served as a Senior Policy Advisor at Israel’s Ministry of Defense, a Research Fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), and a board member at ELNET, where she leads strategic cooperation projects between Israel and European countries.

She regularly briefs policymakers and defense officials in Israel, the United States, and Europe, and provides strategic consulting to governmental and non-governmental organizations.

Dr. Fainberg is fluent in Hebrew, English, French, and Russian. She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from Sciences Po, Paris, and is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Ulm) in Paris.