MARK S. MILOSCH, Ph.D. – Dr. Milosch was appointed Chief of Staff by commission Chairman Rep. Chris Smith in February 2011. He is responsible to direct commission staff in achieving the commissioners’ goals, and for liaison with commissioners, other Members of Congress, the executive branch, foreign governments, and intergovernmental organizations and NGOs. He also advises the Chairman and other commissioners on foreign policy toward the OSCE and the organization’s 57 participating states, as well as partner states. He serves as Chairman Smith’s principal advisor regarding the commission’s program of hearings, briefings, special events, and advocacy on human rights, commercial and security issues connected to the OSCE.

Before his appointment as Chief of Staff, from 2007-2011, Dr. Milosch served as Senior Advisor to Rep. Smith, a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs who has focused much of his legislative work on international human rights legislation and advocacy. In 2006-2007, he served as Counsel to the Helsinki Commission, and from 2003-2006 as Special Advisor to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. In the 1990s he practiced law in Detroit, Michigan.

Dr. Milosch earned a B.A. summa cum laude in International Relations and Justice, Morality, and Constitutional Democracy from Michigan State University’s James Madison College, a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, a Certificate in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Bologna Center, and a Ph.D. in European History from the University of Iowa. He is the author of Modernizing Bavaria: The Politics of Franz Josef Strauβ and the Christian Social Union, 1949-1969 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006). A former Fulbright and DAAD Scholar to Germany, and the 1992 Paul Nitze fellow at the SAIS Bologna Center, he is fluent in German and Italian and has reading knowledge of French and Romanian.