Dr. Sandis Šrāders is the Director for Defence Technology Innovation at Riga Technical University (RTU) and the Director of the MA Programme “Military Leadership and Security” at the Latvian National Defence Academy (LNDA). He also serves as a Board Member of the Latvian Transatlantic Organization (LATO), where he held the position of Secretary General from 2007 to 2014.
Dr. Šrāders has extensive experience in teaching and research, having served as a lecturer and senior researcher at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, the Baltic Defence College (2019–2024), the University of Tartu, the University of Latvia, Rīga Stradiņš University, and Old Dominion University (Norfolk, Virginia). His teaching and research interests include U.S. foreign policy, EU foreign policy, Russia’s foreign and security policy, international political economy, and the role of small states in international affairs.
In 2024, Dr. Šrāders was a Visiting Researcher at George Washington University, where he examined the impact of digital transformation on security. He is the author of “Small Baltic States and the Euro-Atlantic Security Community” (Palgrave Macmillan) and “The Baltic Transformation: From Communist Subjugation to Democratic Sovereignty” (Routledge, 2023–2025 series). He has served as Chief Editor of the Baltic Defence College’s Annual Conference on Russia Papers (2021–2025) and has published widely, including “Trade Policy Challenges from the Perspective of Small and Open Economies: The Cases of Latvia and Iceland During the 2008–2009 Financial and Economic Crises” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), among numerous other papers, including co-authored works.
From 2013 to 2015, Dr. Šrāders served as the Project Coordinator for the German Marshall Fund of the United States in the Baltic States, contributing to the intellectual groundwork for Latvia’s Presidency of the EU Council in 2015 (particularly in advancing the EU’s Eastern Partnership agenda with publications and research). He has also worked in both the public and private sectors, focusing on defence and security policy, strategic communication, cross-border cooperation, project development and innovation, and NATO and EU programmes and initiatives. Between 2018 and 2019, he held the position of Director of Strategic Projects, Sales, and Advertising at Latvijas Radio, overseeing national communication and outreach projects.