Ilia Murtazashvili is currently an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. He holds a PhD in political science and an MA in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Murtazashvili's research focuses on political economy and institutional design. He is the co-author, with Donald Alexander Downs, of Arms and the University: Military Presence and the Civic Education of Non-Military Students (Cambridge, 2012).