Alexander Misbach graduated from the University of Virginia in August of 2014 with degrees in Environmental Science and Russian and East European Studies. He is currently spending an academic year in Vladivostok enrolled in SRAS’s Russian as a Second Language program. Upon the year’s completion he would like to study Polish in its native land, and/or travel until the money runs out.
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Andrei Nesterov has reported on political and social issues for the Russian press as well as American outlets such as Russian Life, Worldpress.org, and Triangle Free Press. He has travelled Russia extensively and penned many stories on the "real Russia" which lies beyond the capital and major cities. Andrei graduated from Ural State University (journalism) and Irkutsk State Linguistic University (English). He studied public policy and journalism at Duke University on a Muskie Fellowship and went on to study TESOL and teach Russian at West Virginia University. He is currently working on an PhD from West Virginia University in Political Science. Andrei contributes news, feature stories, and language resources to the SRAS site, and is an overall linguistics and research resource.
Program attended: All Programs
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Allie Sasek graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and a double minor in Women and Gender Studies and Planning, Public Policy, and Management. She previously studied abroad in St. Petersburg during summer 2014, studied and interned in Warsaw in summer 2015, and will return for SRAS’s Russian Studies Abroad in St. Petersburg for the 2015 fall semester. Allie intends to attend a masters program in Europe, and work as a sustainability consultant for international NGOs, businesses, and governments.
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Adam Laten Willson holds a BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM, and an MLitt in Comparative Literature from University of Glasgow. The majority of his Master’s studies were devoted to Russian and European modernism, culminating in an investigation of disappearance as ludic device in the writings of Daniil Kharms and Georges Perec. Adam is currently working towards a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University and plans to remain in academic literary scholarship. Adam has extensive experience as a creative writer, journalist, actor, and theatre producer.
Program attended: Online Interships
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Charlie Bacsik is a third-year International Relations and Global Studies major at the University of Texas at Austin. She is minoring in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, with a focus on international security and energy development. Charlie will be spending two semesters with SRAS in Kiev, Ukraine and St. Petersburg, Russia. Following graduation, she intends on attending graduate school for a Masters in International Relations.
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Caroline Barrow is a graduate of Texas A&M University with a degree in International Studies and Russian. She loves traveling and hearing people’s stories. Out of the places she’s been able to visit, her favorite was Kiev, Ukraine for its beauty, history, and friendly people. She received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship and, at the time she wrote for this site, was spending year teaching English in Kostanay, Kazakhstan. Additionally, she was been named SRAS’s Home and Abroad Translation Scholar for the 2013-2014 cycle. Her contributions included mostly translations of articles and blog posts that will be of interest to students.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Corinne Hughes studied art and literature at the Evergreen State College in Washington. She participated in three SRAS programs, a semester in Irkutsk for language immersion and then another semester in St. Petersburg to engage more in cultural studies, and finally more Russian language abroad in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan prior to graduation. Her long-term goal is to promote international communication and collaboration between artists in the United States, Russia, and Eurasia.
Program attended: Challenge Grants
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Danya Spencer holds a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Languages – Russian & Chinese from Lewis and Clark University. She is currently studying in the year-long Home and Abroad Program with The School of Russian and Asian Studies. This program combines study abroad in Russia, an intensive professional internship focusing on translation, research, and writing.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Dayan, at the time he wrote for this site, was a Master's student at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia studying Political Analysis and Public Policy. He was also possibly the only person in Russia from Joplin, Missouri. He hoped to learn the language and political workings in preparation for a possible career as a US diplomat. Beyond a love for East Europe and the Former Soviet Region, he has passions for urban and nature exploration, classic literature, and photography.
Program attended: Challenge Grants
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Evan Fishburn is a senior at Boise State University, pursuing a degree in English Literature and a Certificate in Digital Media and Cinema. He appreciates the intersection of art, music, and literature, specifically as it occurs in the works of Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Turgenev. Evan’s interests include classical piano, short stories, poetry, and photography (find him on Instagram, @evanfishburn). He is taking part in SRAS’s Art and Museums program and is studying the variety of memorial apartment museums throughout St. Petersburg.
Program attended: Art and Museums in Russia
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Elizabeth Everts Rogers has an undergraduate degree in International Studies from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a master’s in European and Russian Studies from Yale University. She hails originally from Omaha, Nebraska.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Hudson received his BA in Russian Studies with a minor in Corporate Communications from Baylor University. At the time he wrote for this site, he was serving as a Home and Abroad Scholar as part of a Spring, 2022 session of SRAS’s Language and Society program St. Petersburg. While abroad, Hudson will be researching the Russian coffee culture, as well as the evolution of specialty coffee in Russia. His goal is to open his own coffee shop in the US - taking his experiences abroad and applying them to his future business.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Jesika Berry holds a bachelors of arts in music performance (flute) from Spelman College in Atlanta Georgia. She has formerly been a principle flautist for AUC Symphony Orchestra (Atlanta) and a cellist for the Huxford Symphony Orchestra (Tuscaloosa). After completing SRAS's Home and Abroad Scholarship program, she planned to go on to graduate studies in Russian musicology.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Jack Fischer, at the time he wrote for this site, was majoring in Physics with Russian and Economics minors at Iowa State University of Science and Technology in Ames, Iowa. He is studied Russian as a Second Language with SRAS over the summer of 2016 to improve his command of the Russian language. In the future, he’d like to work for himself and run a business, preferably abroad.
Program attended: Challenge Grants
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Jonathan Rainey majored in History and English at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. While at Francis Marion, he was a member of Phi Alpha Theta, National History Honors Society and worked as a reporter for The Patriot, the university’s newspaper. Jonathan will be serving as an SRAS Home and Abroad Scholar in Vladivostok for the 2015-2016 school year. He is pictured here at Vladivostok’s annual celebration of “Tiger Day.”
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Josh Seale is pursuing an MA in interdisciplinary German and European Studies at Georgetown University with a specialization in German-Polish relations. He holds a BA in Germanic Studies from the University of Chicago and has interned abroad in Germany and studied abroad previously in Poland. He is currently serving as an SRAS Home and Abroad Scholar in Warsaw, Poland.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Josh Wilson is the Assistant Director for SRAS. He has managed the SRAS Family of Sites, a grouping of publications that cover geopolitics, history, business, economy, pop culture, and politics in Eurasia since 2003. He lived in Moscow, Russia from 2003-2022. He also assists in program development and leads SRAS' scholarship programs.
Program attended: All Programs
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Kimberly Gordy is a student at the University of Texas at Austin working to get a B.A. in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies with a minor in history. Their interest is in medieval and tsarist Russia, and how creative pursuits such as art and literature shape the perception and flow of history. They have been studying Russian language in school for three years. Kimberly is in St. Petersburg for SRAS’s programs in both art and Russian as a second language.
Program attended: Art and Museums in Russia
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Kristin Torres studied Russian language and literature at the University of Missouri-Columbia and at the Summer Workshop in Slavic and Eastern Languages at Indiana University Bloomington. An aspiring arts and culture journalist, she has a particular focus on Eastern European film and literature. A former intern on the Arts Desk at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. and at California and Missouri affiliates KQED and KBIA, she further developed her research and arts reporting skills as a Home and Abroad Scholar in St. Petersburg.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Katheryn Weaver is a student of rhetoric and history at the University of Texas, Austin. Her primary areas of investigation include revolution and the rhetorical justification of violence against individuals, state, and society. She is currently studying Russian as a Second Language with SRAS's Home and Abroad Scholarship.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Lucy Harnish has an English Literature degree with a double minor in Russian Culture and History from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Lucy spent two semesters with SRAS studying Russian as a Second Language in St Petersburg, Russia in the hopes of being able to reread the works of Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy in the Russian language. She also planed to utilize the experience she gains while studying abroad to pursue a degree in journalism.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Marin Ekstrom is an undergraduate studying Global, Cultural, and Language Studies and Russian Studies at the College of St. Scholastica (Duluth, Minnesota). She is studying in St. Petersburg over Summer, 2013 with the Russian as a Second Language program. It will be her first time outside of North America, and she is excited to sharpen her language skills while experiencing cultural immersion. Ideally, in her future she would like to pursue graduate studies in either International Relations or Russian Area Studies.
Program attended: Challenge Grants
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Michael Smeltzer is an SRAS Home and Abroad Scholar who has degrees in Russian Language and Philosophy from St. Olaf College in Minnesota.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Rylin McGee is a junior at the University of Richmond studying International Relations - Development and Change, with a focus on the environment and a minor in Russian Studies. Currently a SRAS Home and Abroad Scholar, she is working to improve her language skills and learn about Russia’s environmental history and policies by attending SRAS’s Russia and the Environment program in Irkutsk during the spring 2018 semester. Beyond studying, Rylin enjoys hiking, yoga, painting, coffee/tea, and exploring. She is the recipient of the SRAS Home and Abroad Scholarship.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Rebekah Welch is a senior at University of Montana in Missoula. She is a double major in Russian and Journalism with an emphasis on photography. She is studying Russian language at NovaMova in Kiev, and am also working for the school as an intern, creating a photoblog. After a semester abroad, she hopes to become fluent enough in Russian that she can work as photojournalist throughout Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Although she loves this area of the world, she has a passion for journalism and will go wherever the story takes her.
Program attended: Challenge Grants
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Sara Marian Deurell is pursuing an undergraduate degree in anthropology with a minor in Russian Studies through University of Louisville. She is also an author whose first novel, The Life and Death (But Mostly the Death) of Erica Flynn, was published through 3 Fates Press on February 18, 2014. It is available in print or on Kindle at Amazon.com. She volunteers at her university's archaeology laboratory during the summer, and plans to pursue archaeology as a career. She attended the museum studies track of Art and Museums in Russia through The School of Russian and Asian Studies in the summer of 2013 to gain experience in curation and art and artifact preservation techniques.
Program attended: Art and Museums in Russia
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Sophia Fisher is currently studying Russian as a Second Language with SRAS Saint Petersburg, Russia. Sophia believes that the exponential development of communication technology has made Russian language skills critical in all professional fields. In August, Sophia will return home to her native Ohio for a final semester at The Ohio State University, where she will receive a diploma in art history and Russian language. After graduation, Sophia plans on pursuing a career in arts management or public relations.
Program attended: Art and Museums in Russia
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Sarah Kirksey, at the time she wrote for this site, was a graduate student of history at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A twentieth century historian, her focus was post-Holocaust Memory in the USA. She was, at the time, studying in Warsaw, Poland as well as working at the POLIN Museum for the summer. Anticipating graduation in December 2017, Sarah planed to continue working in museums. Weekend getaways, beet salads, sweaty workouts, dog loving, time with friends and family, and personalized license plates are a few of Sarah's favorite things.
Program attended: Internships Abroad
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Sarah Parker, at the time she wrote for this site, was a University of Utah student working on an undergraduate in Business Operations with a minor in Russian Language. After SRAS' Russian as Second Language program in 2014, she planned to complete her degree and begin work on her career goal of increasing commercial trade between Russia and the Americas. She is seen here being chased by a bear near Pavlovsk.
Program attended: Challenge Grants
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SRAS Wikis are maintained collectively by SRAS Challenge Grant Writers and Home and Abroad Scholars. They are meant to be continually updated repositories of information created for students and by students to best suit each SRAS location.
Program attended: All Programs
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Sophia Rehm graduated from the University of Chicago in 2012 with a BA in Russian Language and Literature. She studied Russian as a Second Language in St. Petersburg in 2010 and is currently in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan as SRAS's Home and Abroad Scholar. At the time she wrote for this site, she hoped to pursue graduate studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures, as well as literary translation.
Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar
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Taryn Jones graduated in 2008 from the University of Victoria (Canada) with her BA in history and anthropology. During that time, she also studied Russian and art history, and was heavily involved with the university’s Russian Studies course union. At the time she wrote for this site, in she planned to begin her studies at the University of British Columbia in a double Master’s program in library and archival science. Ideally, she would like to work in a gallery or museum’s library or archive. She has traveled throughout Russia on numerous occasions, and first studied in St Petersburg in 2007. In 2009, she traveled across Russia, beginning at the Mongolian border and going westwards towards St Petersburg. In recent years, she has studied art history and museum studies in St Petersburg with SRAS. During that time, she volunteered with the Youth Education Center of the State Hermitage, where she researched artists, edited English-language texts and translated Russian texts to English. Taryn’s specific artistic interests are the Wanderers, Socialist Realism and photography.
Program attended: Art and Museums in Russia
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