Prof. Margarita Šešelgytė is the Director of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science (IIRPS) at Vilnius University. Prior to this role, she served as Deputy Director for Studies at the same institute. She has also worked at the Baltic Defence College (Tartu, Estonia), the General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania, and the European Committee under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania.

She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 1999 and her Master’s degree in 2001 from the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University. In 2007, she defended her doctoral dissertation on the Common European Union defence identity. She has been a member of the Institute since 2007.

Prof. Šešelgytė is an honorary member of the Baltic Defence College, a board member of Ares Group, and a member of the editorial board of Baltic Security and Defence Review (published by the Baltic Defence College). Her main research interests include EU foreign and security policy, security and defence studies, international relations, and foreign policy analysis.

She supervised the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Neringa Bladaitė, titled “Uncertainty of Societal Security: The Case of NATO Small States”. She is currently supervising the doctoral research of Emilė Indrašiūtė, titled “The Concept of Power (Im)balance in Cyberspace: The Influence of Independent Cyber Actors on State Cyber Power.”

Margarita Šešelgytė