2024 Weiser Fellows

Artur Atanesyan
Weiser Professional Development Fellow, 2024

Artur Atanesyan is a professor of applied sociology and department head at Yerevan State University in Armenia. His areas of research and teaching include political and military sociology, conflict communication, and mass media theories. He was a Fulbright researcher at the University of Maryland, College Park (2020), and a visiting professor at the South Caucasus Federal University (2020-2021), the University of Tampere (Finland, 2018), and the University of Sapienza (Italy, 2016). In July 2023, he taught at the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia, organized by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He has served as an OSCE national expert (2012-2014), a national consultant for the Council of Europe Project on Human Rights and Women in the Armed Forces (HRWAF, 2018-2021), and a local expert for the 2016-2018 Action Plan on Ensuring Women’s Protection and Equal Opportunities in the Defense Sector in the Republic of Armenia. Professor Atanesyan is visiting U-M in September to work on his research project, “Identity Structure and Forms of Involvement: Southeast Michigan Armenians in Contemporary Political, Economic, and Cultural Life of Armenia," with Gottfried Hagen, director of the Center for Armenian Studies, and professor or Turkish studies.

Martin Djovčoš
Weiser Professional Development Fellow, 2024

Martin Djovčoš is an associate professor of English and American studies at the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, as well as an active translator and interpreter. His teaching and translation/interpretation research currently focuses mainly on sociological aspects of translation, patterns in intercultural communication, and translation/interpreting training. He is one of the organizers of the “Translation, Interpreting, Culture” conference series and an editor of multiple volumes on translation and interpreting. Professor Djovčoš is visiting U-M in September to work on his research project, “Toward a Comprehensive Methodology of Mapping Translators’ Habitus,” with Benjamin Paloff, chair of Slavic languages & literatures (SLL) and professor of SLL and comparative literature.

Nargiz Hajiyeva
Weiser Professional Development Fellow, 2024

Nargiz Hajiyeva is a political scientist and recipient of the Swiss Federal Excellence Scholarship from Baku, Azerbaijan. Currently, she is the director of the “Organization of Scientific Activities” unit and the chair of the Women Researchers Council (WRC) - Research Center, as well as a part-time academic instructor for courses on political science and leadership and organizational behavior at Azerbaijan State University of Economics (UNEC).

She is also an affiliated member of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) at the University of Michigan. She is the first female political scientist from Azerbaijan to serve as co-director of the empirical methods working group at the Swiss Political Science Association in Bern, Switzerland. Her research focuses on international security and foreign policy issues, energy security, cultural and political history, global political economy, and international law. She is the author of more than 40 articles related to political science and international affairs, two books and one book chapter, and various policy papers and expert reviews. She is visiting U-M in September to work on her research project, “The Impact of Azerbaijan Pipeline Diplomacy on European Energy Policy in the Aftermath of the Russian-Ukrainian War 2022,” with Pauline Jones, professor of political science and director for the Michigan in Washington Program.