Professor Orttung came to GW in 2011, after working at the Open Media Research Institute, EastWest Institute, American University's Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, and the Jefferson Institute. Orttung is a faculty member of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies. In correlation with his work at GW, Orttung is also a visiting fellow at the Center for Security Studies of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.