Serbian Ambassador Ivan Vujacic to Visit Pitt

PITTSBURGH—For the second time in as many months, Pitt's Center for Russian and East European Studies (REES) will host an ambassador to the United States—His Excellency Ivan Vujacic, ambassador of Serbia and Montenegro. Vujacic will give a lecture titled "Political and Economic Developments in Serbia and Montenegro" at 3:30 p.m. April 13 in the Alcoa Room of Pitt's Barco Law Building, 3900 Forbes Ave., Oakland.

Following Vujacic's lecture, Robert Hayden, professor of anthropology and director of REES, and Snezana Djordjevic, a scholar visiting Pitt from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade, will comment on the ambassador's remarks.

Before becoming Serbia and Montenegro's ambassador to the United States in 2002, Vujacic was a professor of economics at the University of Belgrade, where, in 1989, he received the Ph.D. degree in economics. Vujacic was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, from 1983 to 1984. He was one of the founding members of the Democratic Party of Serbia, which was established in 1990, and has served the party in various capacities, including as a member of its Political Council and executive and foreign relations committees. He also served as president of the party's Board of Economic Advisors and on the committee representing the Central Belgrade municipality. Vujacic was instrumental in the founding of the G17, which later became G17 Plus, a nongovernmental organization of independent economists whose goal is to create a strong economy and stable democracy in Serbia.

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4/8/04/tmw