CREES heartily congratulates 2022 Rhodes Scholar Rachael Merritt, a senior at the University of Michigan double majoring in Russian language and culture and international studies! Rachael has been an active member of the CREES community for the last several years, having been awarded a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship from CREES for Russian language (2019-20 academic year), volunteering for visiting scholar Yevgenia Albats (2019-20), as well as executing a student-initiated project in the CREES-Ford School collaborative initiative "U.S.-Russia Future Leaders" (2021). For her project with fellow senior Kyle Arnashus, they organized a thoughtful public discussion with several Russian activists titled "Being Queer in Russia: A Conversation about Challenges Facing Russia’s LGBTQ+ Movement ." Rachael is passionate about advocacy for repressed minority groups, social justice, and diplomacy, and we at CREES are excited that she will continue to pursue her interests in Russian and Eastern European studies at the University of Oxford. Read more on the Global Michigan website.
