ABOUT

I am currently the Director of the U.S. Fulbright Program in Ukraine and the Head of IIE: Institute of International Education Kyiv Office. For a recent article about the history of IIE since 1919 in light of current events in Ukraine and elsewhere around the globe, see here. Today many institutions stand in solidarity with Ukraine.

This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the IIE-Fulbright office in Kyiv. My teams and I were able to break new ground by co-developing a new IIE student international leadership program (link here). The program is a study exchange opportunity that provides one full semester for undergraduates from Ukraine to be hosted at U.S. universities, where they will implement projects and receive mentorship from the program and RDI: Renew Democracy Initiative while in the U.S. and upon returning to Ukraine.

At present I am working on my second monograph, which is under contract with University of Toronto Press.

My first monograph Superfluous Women: Feminism, Art, and Revolution in Twenty-First Century Ukraine (University of Toronto Press 2020) is regularly cited and has been widely reviewed. My book won the American Association for Ukrainian Studies Book Prize in 2022; the MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Book Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures Honorable Mention in 2021; and the Omelijan Hrytsak Book Prize in Ukrainian Studies Honorable Mention from Harvard in 2021. For one of my author Interviews, see the Association for Slavic and East European Studies (ASEEES) Member Spotlight here. My monograph will be published in Polish in 2023 in a newly edited edition by the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw with Karakter Press. The book will also soon appear in a Ukrainian edition on ArtHuss Press in partnership with the Revolution of Dignity Museum Kyiv.

I have also recently published a peer-reviewed academic anthology as editor and contributing author, which features fifteen scholars, entitled: Freedom Taking Place: War, Women, and Culture at the Intersection of Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus (Vernon Press, 2023).

I have been hosted as a Visiting Scholar and/or Research Fellow in multiple countries:

From 2017-2018, I was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Area Studies to the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine, where I taught university courses in Visual Anthropology and Women's Studies in the Sociology Department, delivered talks to several universities, and conducted research toward my second monograph.

I was in residence as the Research Fellow expert on Ukraine at the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy from 2015-2016, and the University of Alberta from 2018-2021. I was a Visiting Scholar at IRES: Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden in September 2019. I have participated in invited talks and residencies at universities and also museums, including IMMA: Ireland Museum of Modern Art in Dublin; the University of St. Andrews in Edinburgh, Scotland; NYU's Center for European and Mediterranean Studies; the Baltic Center for Writers and Translators in Gotland, Sweden; University of Kansas CREEES; University of Indiana REEI; University of Arkansas; University of Würzberg in Germany, and several others. I also have experience through work and research as a Training Specialist in communications and cybersecurity for mid-career professionals at Department of Homeland Security HQ in Washington, D.C. and as a Fellow at U-Michigan Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.

I completed my doctorate at the University of Michigan in 2015 in Slavic Languages and Literatures with a cognate in History and a competitive residency at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG). While at U-Michigan, I also earned a certificate in Area Studies from the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES); served on the CREES Executive Board; and was in the first cohort of the U-M Initiative in Digital Humanities, through which I received a competitive award and was selected to attend the North America DHSI: Digital Humanities Summer Institute hosted at the University of British Columbia in Canada. I earned my B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Political Theory from the University of California Berkeley. I served a full term as a U.S. Peace Corps Secondary School TEFL Volunteer to the Lwów/Lviv region in Ukraine from 2005-2007. I have published many peer-reviewed academic articles and chapters in journals and anthologies edited by senior scholars in multiple disciplinary fields and on highly ranked presses. Selections include, among others: Kennan Institute; the Anthropology of East Europe Review (U-Berkeley); Ibidem-Verlag with Columbia University Press; The Journal for Ukrainian Politics and Society (Harvard U); Transgressive Women in Modern Russian and East European Cultures: From the Bad to the Blasphemous (Routledge Press, 2016, Eds. Beth Holmgren, Mark Lipovetsky, and Yana Hashamova). I have also written pieces for general audiences on current issues concerning human rights in the context of global affairs.

I have developed and taught my own syllabi in the areas of literature, film, cultural studies, and global affairs at both the graduate-level and undergraduate levels, including courses at University of Toronto, University of Michigan, and Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. I have also served as a member of theses committees: I recently advised a Ph.D. dissertation in Slavic/Comparative Literature at U-Mass Amherst, and an MA Thesis in Art History at University of Alberta.

I currently serve in an elected capacity on two professional boards including the Association for Women in Slavic Studies, and a nominated capacity on two others.

I regularly peer-review articles for journals in my research areas. I am most often contacted to review texts under consideration at academic journals in: Sociology, REES Area Studies, Gender Studies, Visual Studies, History, and New Media. I am a co-founding Editor of the "Forum on Race and Postcolonialism" at the journal Krytyka and a Guest Editor at EWJUS: East West Journal of Ukrainian Studies (U-Alberta). I have completed and published book-length translations of creative non-fiction texts and fiction into English by contemporary authors who write in Ukrainian. I have also worked independently and collaboratively as a curator of museum exhibits, a featured speaker in museum public programs, and have contributed my own texts and podcast interviews to initiatives spanning the scholarly-artistic communities, with partnership from universities, NGOS, and museums.

Please contact me for my CV, any other information, collaborative ideas, or just to say hello.