Position held - Head of IIS Directorate of Social and Economic Programs of the IIS.

Olga Vershinskaya is a specialist in the field of sociological issues of informatization. She is one of the founders of this field and author and participant of ten sociological surveys in this area completed in 1998-2004.

In 1977 Ms. Vershinskaya defended her Ph.D. dissertation in Economics specializing in management information systems (USSR Academy of Sciences). In 1995 she defended her second dissertation entitled "Socio-Economic Conditions and Consequences of Informatization" and earned a Doctor of Economic Sciences degree. In 1994 Olga Vershinskaya won the George Soros Competition on Public Policy. Between 1997 and 2002 she worked as a Deputy Director of the Institute for Socio-Economic Studies of Population (ISESP), Russian Academy of Sciences; currently she is a principal researcher in this Institute.

Olga Vershinskaya is a Doctor of Economic Sciences as well as an author and co-author of over 130 scientific publications, including four monographs. Her works have been published in the USA, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, and South Korea.

Ms. Vershinskaya is an invited member of two European research networks: "Electronic Media in Everyday Life" (EMTEL) 1991-1995 and "Users and uses of ICT" COST - 269 (2001-2004).

Along with 80 scientists from different countries she participated as a representative of the Russian Federation in the European Consensus on the Economics of Development in 1999. This event followed the Washington Consensus and was held by the Prime Minister of France in Paris (Au-delà du Consensus de Washington). Olga Vershinskaya headed and participated in five international projects, including TACIS, EMTEL, World Bank, and COST projects. She also received the Russian Federation for Fundamental Research grant "Readiness of the People for Life and Work in the Information Society" for 2001-2002.

Ms. Vershinskaya is a member of the editorial team of the Information Society journal; she heads the "Sociology of Informatization" specialization in the Modern Humanitarian Academy; and she is a member of the Moscow City Duma Public Expert Council on the Information Society Development.