Dennison Rusinow was a renowned expert on Yugoslavia and a professor of history and East European studies at the University of Pittsburgh for many years. His ICWA fellowship from 1958 to 1963 covered Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria and Italy. He was the author of the landmark study The Yugoslav Experiment 1948-1974 and an authority on the government of longtime Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito and ethnic nationalism in the Balkan nation. He returned to the institute to become executive director in 1967, during the brief period when Dick Nolte was appointed ambassador to Egypt.