Beate Eschment is an expert on Central Asia and has been a researcher at ZOiS since 2016. She gained her PhD in Russian history at the University of Hannover in 1992. Since then, her research has focused on contemporary developments in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. She has worked at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Ebenhausen, the Central Asia Seminar at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Institute for Oriental Studies at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, and the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen. From 2008 to 2019, she was the editor of the Zentralasien-Analysen. She has taught at various German and Central Asian universities, including the German-Kazakh University and the Al-Farabi University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the Bishkek Humanities University in Kyrgyzstan. She is currently also a lecturer at the Central Asia Seminar at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.