CREES is pleased to include a number of graduate students from across the University of Michigan with interests in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia in our community of scholars. Beyond our MA Students, this includes Graduate Certificate students who officially enroll in of course of study at CREES, and Graduate Student Associates with a formal connection to the center.
Graduate Student Associates
Arianna Afsari
Ph.D., Comparative Literature
Research interests: Traditions of poetry and literature deployed as tools of anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and decolonial resistance; memory studies; conditions of extremity; and revolutionary, leftist imaginations.
Regional interests: Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, and Russia.
Erina Baci
Ph.D., Anthropology
Research Interests: prehistory of Kosovo and Albania, geographic information system (GIS), settlement pattern analysis
Regional Interests: Eastern Europe
Lauren Beck
Ph.D., German
Research Interests: temporality, memory studies, Eastern European migration to Germany, contemporary German literature, visual culture, (post-)socialism
Regional Interests: German Democratic Republic/Former East Germany, Central Europe, Former Soviet Union, Russia
Jeffrey Bilik
Ph.D., Sociology
Research Interests: housing, social welfare, migration, political sociology
Regional Interests: Central Asia, Former Soviet Union, Russia
Azhar Dyussekenova
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: Race, gender, and sexuality studies, Post-Soviet literatures, Post-/decolonial Central Asian literature and visual art, Queer-feminist writing from non-Russian contexts
Regional Interests: Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia
Samantha Farmer
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: Ex-Yugoslav film and literature; queer, feminist, and urbanist movements in Eastern Europe; literary translation
Regional Interests: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Balkans and Ukraine
William Forrest Holden
Ph.D., History
Research Interests: gender, empire, Russian Empire, public sphere, enlightenment
Regional Interests: Baltics, Central Asia, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia
Daniel Garner
Ph.D., Anthropology
Research Interests: Neolithic/Bronze Age transition, horse pastoralism, horse domestication, stable isotopes, ancient DNA, technological transmissions, trade networks
Regional Interests: Russia, Kazakhstan
Zhaneta Gjyshja
PhD Anthropological Archaelogy
Research Interests: transition period from Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, social change, material culture
Regional Interests: Central Europe, Albania, Kosova, Balkans
Renny Hahamovitch
Ph.D., History
Research Interests: Soviet and American space programs, science and technology, the Cold War, political economy, comparative history
Regional Interests: Central Asia, Russia, Former Soviet Union
Katie Kasperian
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: Post-Yugoslav films and documentaries, transitional justice, life after genocide, reconciliation, memory studies, visual studies, museum studies
Regional Interests: Former Soviet Union, Former Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe
Jane Kitaevich
Ph.D., Political Science
Research Interests: political psychology, nation-building, democratic transitions, regime change, collective memory, identity politics, nationalism, ethnic conflicts, politics of education, separatism, regionalism, civil society/public spheres, protest movements, sociological and historical institutionalism, religion and politics, citizenship and immigration, ideological parties, politics of distribution
Regional Interests: Armenia, Baltics, Caucasus, Central Asia, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Poland, Russia
Aleksandra Marciniak
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: 20th-century Russian and Polish poetry, Russian rap, identity building, cults of personality, new media
Regional Interests: Russia, Poland
Ashley McDermott
Ph.D., Anthropology
Research Interests: language ideologies, language planning and policy, linguistic landscape analysis, language shift, language socialism in post-Soviet Central Asia
Regional Interests: Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan
Arthur Mengozzi
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: Russian and Ukrainian languages and literatures, literary translation, comparative literature, diaspora, religious studies, trauma theory, memory
Regional Interests: Eastern Europe, Poland, Russia, Ukraine
Carrie Ann Morgan
Ph.D., Linguistics and Anthropology
Research Interests: linguistic nationalism and standard languages, sociolinguistic variation and change, socialism and post-socialism
Regional Interests: Eastern Europe, Albania, Kosovo, Balkans, Southeastern Europe
Genta Nishku
Ph.D., Comparative Literature
Research Interests: poetics of silence, ethics of writing trauma, forms of resistance, activist and protest movements, the Cold War, critiques of human rights discourse, the body in pain, memory and its instrumentalization, translation
Regional Interests: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Balkans
Györgyi Parditka
Ph.D., Anthropology
Research Interests: Bronze Age societies, Hungary, Serbia, funerary practices, variations in social organization, social identity, children in the past
Regional Interests: Eastern Europe, Hungary
Sara Ruiz
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research interests: Ethnicity in the USSR, WWII in Soviet culture, war literature, cultural history of the Red Army
Regional interests: Former Soviet Union, Russia
Megan Savoy
Ph.D., Anthropology
Research Interests: Mongol Empire health and diet, bioarchaeology
Regional Interests: Central Asia
Julian Schultz
Ph.D., Anthropology
Research Interests: Balkan prehistory, Neolithic - Bronze Age transition
Regional Interests: Balkans
Tanya Silverman
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: film, literature, visual cultures
Regional Interests: Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Czech/Slovak Republic
Iride Tomazic
Ph.D., Anthropological Archaeology
Research Interests: Late Copper age/Bronze age transition, Balkans, mortuary archaeology, osteology, metallurgy, health in prehistory, social identity, environmental pollution
Regional Interests: South-Eastern Europe, Carpathian Basin
Yipeng Zhou
Ph.D., History
Research Interests: History of mining in Central Eurasia, Eurasian borderlands, environmental history
Regional Interests: Eastern Europe, Armenia, Caucasus, Central Asia, Former Soviet Union, Russia
Carina Zhur
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: Soviet Cinema of the 1960s-1970s, nationality, urban vs. rural dichotomy
Regional Interests: Eastern Europe, Russia, Former Soviet Union
