Meet Our Scholars

The Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) hosts scholars from around the world who are conducting research on topics related to Europe and/or Eurasia (the territory corresponding to the former Soviet Union). These visiting scholars include senior scholars, post-doctoral scholars, and advanced graduate students. Visiting Scholars present on their research as part of IERES’ visiting scholar roundtable event series. 

Visiting Scholars

Oleksandr Fisun, Visiting Scholar
The Puzzle of Ukrainian Democracy: Presidents, Oligarchs and Informal Politics after the Euromaidan Revolution

Dr. Oleksandr Fisun is a professor of political science and the department head at the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine (B.A. with Highest Honors in Political Economy, 1987; C.Sc. in Philosophical Sciences, 1990; D.Sc. habil in Political Science, 2009). His research interests concentrate on Ukrainian and post-Soviet politics. During the past ten years, he has held visiting fellowships at the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, & Central Asian Studies at the University of Washington (Seattle); the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta (Edmonton); the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki; the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute; the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Amsterdam);  the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto; the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies (Warsaw), and the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. His publications include “Democracy, Neopatrimonialism, and Global Transformations” (Kharkiv, 2006) and numerous book chapters and articles on comparative democratization, informal politics, neopatrimonialism, and regime change in Ukraine and post-Soviet Eurasia. He serves as President of the “Observatory of Democracy” policy research center in Kharkiv, which he founded in 2016 with a group of political experts to improve democratic accountability, civic activism, free and fair elections, and citizen awareness in eastern frontline Ukrainian regions. 

Jonathan Guiffard, Visiting Scholar
The Territorial Strategies of American Cyber Agencies Against the Russian Strategic Threat

A graduate of the Institut d’Études Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence (2005-2010), Jonathan Guiffard is a French researcher specialized in strategic issues. After 12 years in the French government, working on topics related to West Africa and Middle-East, in which he developed an in-depth knowledge of diplomatic and military issues, Jonathan shifted for an academic journey and currently pursue a PhD in the GEODE center (Geopolitics of the Datasphere) at the French Institute of Geopolitics (Paris 8 Uni.). His research focuses on the territorial strategies of American cyber and intelligence agencies, providing a geographical perspective to the digital contest with Russia and China. It also includes a previous work on the American cyber and intelligence assistance to Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. Since September 2022, Jonathan is also a Senior Fellow at the French think-tank, Institut Montaigne, following strategic and defense policies. In that fashion, he focuses on France’s strategic policies and rivalries, especially (but not only) in Sahel and West Africa.

Yusin Lee, Visiting Scholar
The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Impact on Interdependence in Energy Trade between Russia and the EU

Yusin Lee is a Professor of Political Science at Yeungnam University, South Korea. He received his Ph.D. with distinction from the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in 2004. Since then his research has mainly focused on energy policies and energy security. He has published numerous papers on these issues in Korean and English. Two of his papers, “Opportunities and Risks in Turkmenistan’s Quest for Diversification of Its Gas Export Routes” and “Interdependence, Issue Importance, and the 2009 Russia-Ukraine Gas Conflict,” appeared in one of the most prestigious journals in the area of energy, “Energy Policy.” 

Eleonora Minaeva, Visiting Scholar
Conditions and Effects of Political (De)Centralization Under Authoritarianism

Eleonora Minaeva is a doctoral researcher in the Social and Political Sciences Department at the European University Institute. Originally from Perm region, she began studying subnational politics, protests, and interethnic relations in Russia. Her current research focuses on explaining institutional changes at the local level in autocracies from a cross-national perspective, with a particular emphasis on the post-Soviet region. One of her projects explores the impact of introducing rural executive elections on elite composition and government performance in Kazakhstan.

Pavlo Smytsnyuk, Visiting Scholar
The Russo-Ukrainian War and Religious Actors: Preparing for Peace 

Pavlo Smytsnyuk is a Ukrainian scholar of religion. He specializes in political theology, modern Greek and Slavic Orthodoxy, religious nationalism and peacebuilding. From 2022-2024 Pavlo was a Seeger O’Boyle Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University. Prior to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, Pavlo served as the Director of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies and a Senior Lecturer at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine. Pavlo has published on issues such as comparative theology, ecumenical dialogue, as well as religious approaches to tolerance, war, and the ecological crisis. Since 2021, he has been a member of the State Department’s Advisory Council of Religions and Ethnicities of Ukraine, and has led a number of international projects. Pavlo studied philosophy and theology in Rome, Athens and St Petersburg and holds a Doctorate from the University Oxford.

Non-Resident Scholars

Dusan Bozalka, Visiting Scholar
Conspiracy Theories as Transnational Strategic Narratives: The Online Ecosystems of the QAnon Movement in France, Germany, and Italy (2017-2022)

Dusan Bozalka is a PhD candidate in Information Science at the Centre d’Analyse et de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur l’Étude des Médias (CARISM) at Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas, as well as the Institute of Strategic Research at the École Militaire (IRSEM). His research focuses on the dissemination of strategic conspiracy narratives by QAnon influencers in English, French, German, and Italian digital spaces. Additionally, his work explores how these influencers engage with and amplify Russian disinformation narratives to their audiences. He employs a mixed computational approach, combining strategic communication concepts with sociological analysis of multiplatform social networks.

Dusan was recently nominated to receive a Schuman Fulbright Scholarship rewarding innovative projects, which allows him to pursue his research at George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES). He also received a merit-based grant to be a Visiting PhD researcher at the Center Marc Bloch in Berlin, where he studied the formation of digital communities on alternative platforms. Dusan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Translation from the University of Mons (Belgium) and two Master’s degrees in International Relations and History from the Sorbonne and Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas. He is fluent in French, English, German, and Italian, skills that facilitate his cross-cultural research and analysis.

Past Visiting Scholars

2019-2020 Visting Scholars

• Iakovos Michailidis, The Reconstruction of Greece after World War II: The Role of UNNRA
• Stefan Kaschube, Multi-National Corporations as Instruments in International Relations – the Role of American Extratteritorial Sanctions
• Per Ekman, Foreign Policy Strategies of Ukraine and Georgia
• Zarina Burkadze, Competing Foreign Influences and Domestic Coordination in Democratizing Georgie: EU, NATO, US, and Russia
• Bekzod Zakirov, From Market to the State: Politics of State Ownership in Kazakhstan and Russia 
• Irina Olimpieva, Russian Young People’s Perceptions of Corruption and the Resulting Influence on Political and Economic Behavior
• Liliya Karimova, By the Grace of God: Women, Islam, and Transformation in Russia
• Aisalkyn Botoeva, Emergence and Expansion of the Islamic Economy in Central Asia
• Derya Butuktanir Karacan, The Impact of Syrian Refugess in Hungary and Germany
• Emmanuel Dreyfus, Russian Defense Reforms Since 2008

2018-2019 Visiting Scholars

• Uchkun Dustov, Sino-American Relationship at the Beginning of the XXI Century
• Miguel Vazquez, New Regulatory Paradigms to Realize Engery Transitions in the European Union
• Daria Gritsenko, Sustainable Energy for the Arctic Regions
• Daniel Stahl, The Arms Trade and International Law in the 20th Century
• Emil Nasritdinov, Migration in Kyrgyzstan: Here, There and in Between

2017-2018 Visiting Scholars

• Stephen Crowley, The Other Russia: Labor Politics and the Putin Regime in Challenging Economic Times
• Nicolas Belorgey, Prospective Payments Systems and the Elderly: A Frano-American Comparison
• Elzbieta Olzacka, The Cultural Context of the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine
• Gabor Csizmazia, The United States’ Security Relationship with Europe’s Eastern Flank
• Sielke Beata Kelner, US Human Rights Promotion in Eastern Europe: The Case of Romania (1977-1989)
• Katerina Sokou, The US’s Role in the Greek Debt Crisis
• Lauren Woodard, Resettlement of Compatriots Program in Russia’s Far East