Lawrence A. Uzzell was Moscow representative of Keston Institute and editor of its Keston News Service from 1995 to 1999. In 1998 Keston's Council voted unanimously to appoint him as Michael Bourdeaux's successor and he formally became the Institute's director on 1 April 1999.

In the 1980s Mr Uzzell worked as a journalist for the Scripps Howard newspapers in Washington, writing extensively about education reform in America before pursuing a second career as a specialist in Russian studies.

In 1989-1990 he was a visiting Media Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, researching religious freedom in the Soviet Union. He has been widely published and quoted in both the British and American news media, including the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent, National Public Radio, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

In 1998 he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his reportage of the enactment and implementation of Russia's 1997 law restoring state control over religious life. He is a graduate of Yale University and a practicing Orthodox Christian.