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.
REEES Graduate Certificate Students
Piper Sigrest
Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Graduate Certificate
Piper Sigrest, a Ph.D. candidate in aerospace engineering, is excited to continue studying Russian language and culture through the CREES Graduate Certificate Program. They graduated from MIT in 2018 with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Russian and Eurasian Studies. As an aspiring astronaut, Piper seeks to promote international collaboration in space, and is particularly interested in studying the Russian space program. Piper speaks Russian, and in the summer of 2019, studied abroad in Moscow through American Councils and volunteered at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. They also developed and led hands-on STEM workshops for middle and high school students in Kazakhstan and Russia in January 2017 and January 2018, respectively. Piper is a 2017 Brooke Owens Fellow, and has interned at NASA, Aurora Flight Sciences, SpaceX, Virgin Orbit, and Blue Origin. In their free time, Piper loves hiking, crocheting, and ice skating.
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
Leah Bernardo-Ciddio
Ph.D., Classical Art and Archaelogy
Research Interests: archaeology, prehistory, ceramic production, communities of practice, intercultural exchange, material culture, maritime cultural landscapes
Regional Interests: Balkans
Jeffrey Bilik
Ph.D., Sociology
Research Interests: housing, social welfare, migration, political sociology
Regional Interests: Central Asia, Former Soviet Union, Russia
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
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
Emine Seda Kayim
Ph.D., Architecture, and German Studies Graduate Certificate
Research Interests: Industrialization and Mass Production in Europe and the Soviets, Production and Exchange of Architectural Knowledge during the Cold War, Technologies and Materialities of Space, Surveillance Studies, Soviet Socialist Governmentality, East German Art, Architecture and Literature, Interwar and Postwar German Thought, Media Studies
Regional Interests: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union
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
Grace Mahoney
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: Russian and Ukrainian languages and literatures, literary memorial media, museum studies, literary translation, visual arts, women's and gender studies
Regional Interests: Russia, Ukraine, Former Soviet Union
Alexander McConnell
Ph.D., History
Research Interests: Russian and Soviet social and cultural history, Soviet film history, language and subjectivity
Regional Interests: Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Russia
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
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
A'Yanna Solomon
Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures
Research Interests: ethnic studies (Romani studies), media and popular culture, comic studies, comparative literature
Regional Interests: Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Russia
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
