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. 

Marat Iliyasov , Visiting Scholar
Chechen Lessons for Post-Soviet States

Dr. Marat Iliyasov is a Chechen scholar specializing in International Relations and Comparative
Politics. Presently, he holds the position of Fellow at the Global Academy of George Washington
University. Prior to this, he served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Miami University, which he
joined following the completion of his post-doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Iliyasov’s research concentrates on various areas, including the Russo-Chechen war and its
aftermath, post-Soviet conflicts across the broader Eurasian region, the dynamics of religious
radicalization and the governance of religions, as well as the intricate interplay of
authoritarianism and memory politics in Russia and Chechnya. At present, he is in a process of
completing his first book Procreation for the Sake of the Nation (under contract). This project
delves into the motivations driving procreation among Chechens during times of conflict. His
academic journey has been fortified by a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of
St. Andrews, which he began after completion of his Master’s degree in Caucasus Studies from
Ilia State University in Tbilisi. Another MA degree that he holds is from the School of Political
Science and International Relations at Vilnius University. Before academia Dr. Iliyasov's worked
as a journalist, and various non-governmental organizations in Georgia and Lithuania.

Marianna Lovato, Visiting Scholar
U.S. Influence on EU Foreign Policy Decision-making: Unpacking Transatlantic Alliance Dynamics in the Age of Great Power Competition

Marianna Lovato is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel), where she is currently working on the ERC project SINATRA (Sino-American competition and European Strategic autonomy), with a focus on US strategies of influence towards European foreign policy. Her broader research interests include the role of informality in international cooperation, transatlantic relations, European foreign and security policy, and international diplomacy. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Journal of Common Market Studies, the Journal of European Public PolicyThe Hague Journal of Diplomacy and Comparative European Politics.

Uliana Movchan, Visiting Scholar
Autonomy of the Subnational Level in the Neopatrimonial States: The Case of Ukraine

Uliana Movchan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science in V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University and an expert at the European Expert Association (Kyiv). Her research interests concern the issues of institutional design, peace-building, Ukrainian political system, patronal politics, and power-sharing. She was a Fulbright visiting postgraduate student at the University of California, San Diego and held junior visiting fellowship at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto (funded by Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies). During her stay at the IERES Uliana Movchan worked on a project titled “Power-sharing in the Ukrainian Neopatrimonial State,” which explored types of power-sharing and their possible application to the Ukrainian political system. During her stay at IERES, Dr. Movchan conducted a research project called Power-sharing in the Ukrainian Neopatrimonial State: Coexistence or Incompatibility?

Polina Sinovets, Visiting Scholar
Nuclear Deterrence in the Ukraine War: the Case of Russia-US Interaction

Polina Sinovets is Head of the Odesa Center for Nonproliferation (OdCNP) and also an Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Relations, Political Science and Sociology at Odesa’s Mechnikov National University, Ukraine. Her expertise is in nuclear history and policy, military history, Ukraine, and Russia. From 2004 to 2012 she was a Senior Research Associate at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies. In 2006, she was a Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a Fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome in 2015, and a Fulbright Scholar at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation in 2017 (in Washington, DC). She has published numerous articles on nuclear deterrence, disarmament, missile defense, and nonproliferation in Ukrainian, Russian, and English.

Sandis Sraders, Visiting Scholar
Digital Transformation and Security of Small Baltic States

Sandis Sraders is a researcher and lecturer at the Baltic Defence College in Tartu, Estonia on Russian military and strategic studies. He is also MA Program Director at the Latvian National Defence Academy in Riga, Latvia. He has served as Secretary General of the Latvian Transatlantic Organisation (LATO) from 2007 until 2014 and assumed the role of a Board Member of LATO since 2014. Dr. Sraders has been the project coordinator for the German Marshall Fund of the United States in the Baltic States (2013-2015). His responsibility was accumulating the intellectual capital for the Latvian Presidency at the EU Council in 2015. Dr. Sraders was responsible for expert selection and meetings as well as the final publication addressing the EU’s Eastern Partnership. One of his recent positions was Director of Strategic Projects, Sales, and Advertising at Latvijas Radio (2018–2019). Dr. Sraders academic interests include Russia foreign and security studies, US foreign policy, as well as role of small states in international affairs and the global political economy.

Non-Resident Scholars

Giovanna De Maio, Non-Resident Scholar
The Space for Italy in Transatlantic Relations

Carter Johnson, Non-Resident Scholar
“Russia Today” or Russian “Longue-Duree”? What explains opinions in Russia’s neighborhood about Russia’s Responsibility in the War Against Ukraine?

Between 2012 and 2022, Carter Johnson was a faculty member at HSE University in Moscow; his academic research has been published in World Politics, International Security, Europe-Asia Studies, and the Washington Post, among others. In 2021 his book, Partition and Peace in Civil Wars, was published by Routledge; the book came out as paperback in 2023. Carter also serves as a Regional Director at American Councils for International Education, overseeing Russia, Poland, Romania, Moldova, and Mongolia. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and a PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Sang Kyung Lee, Non-Resident Schola

Sang Kyung Lee’s research is primarily concerned with the social origins and consequences of economic and political crises. His recent projects explore the causal mechanisms underlying varying popular responses to sovereign debt crises and recession and the implications of the unprecedented surge of populism over the past few decades for the quality and stability of democratic governance in the long run.

Israel Marques, Non-Resident Scholar
Non-Democratic Conservatism from the Grassroots: Evidence from Russian Conservative Organizations

A Virginia native, Israel received his Ph.D from Columbia University in 2016. He was formerly an assistant professor of Politics and Governance at the National Research University – Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia before resigning due to the invasion of Ukraine. His primary research explores the political economy of public services in middle-income countries, particularly Russia and post-communist Europe. Public services are central to political science, shaping electoral outcomes, popular support for governments, and economic development. His work explores how institutions – human constraints on human interaction – shape demand for public services. Weak institutions lead to many problems, including low accountability, weak rule of law, and corruption, that ben public services to political ends at the expense of poverty and inequality reduction. His research builds on the insight that these shape demand for services by enabling select groups to benefit at the expense of others, while creating new vulnerabilities for everyone else. His past work applies this insight to explain supply and demand for a range of public services among both businesses and the general population, including vocational education and training, redistributive social policies, and property rights. His recent research extends his work on popular demand to explore how and when electoral autocracies can use services as a tool for reproducing political power. Taken together, his work sheds light on the complex politics of public services in middle-income countries, how and when key social and business constituencies push for them, and the incentives of autocrats to provide them.

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

INSTITUTE FOR EUROPEAN, RUSSIAN AND EURASIAN STUDIES

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Tel: (202) 994-6340
Email: ieresgwu@gwu.edu

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