Fellows

Elmira Ablyalimova-Chyihoz is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on historical memory, decolonization, and Crimean Tatar culture and cultural heritage, with particular attention to memory regimes, epistemic resistance, and the ethics of documenting cultural losses in situations of occupation and armed conflict.

She is a project management professional with more than ten years of experience leading complex initiatives in international and cross-cultural environments. From 2017 to 2025, she served as Project Manager and Cultural Studies Expert at the Crimean Institute for Strategic Studies, where she led grant-funded initiatives dedicated to documenting violations of international humanitarian law and safeguarding cultural identity in occupied territories. Her professional expertise includes coordinating multidisciplinary teams, aligning diverse stakeholders, and ensuring that projects progress from conceptual development to measurable outcomes.

She has contributed to research prepared for the European Parliament and has participated in advocacy and expert events at UNESCO Headquarters. Her recent publications focus on Crimean Tatar culture, the analysis of memory dispositifs, postcolonial interpretations of Crimea, and the cultural dimensions of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Documentary photographer, videographer from Kharkiv. Co-producer and cameraman of “2000 meters to Andriivka”. Since the end of February 2022, he has been covering Russian-Ukrainian war. He documented Ukrainian counter offensive in 2022-2023, defence of Bakhmut, was part of the only one team reporting liberation of Andriivka and start of Krynky operation, continues to cover the war. He has worked for Reuters, Getty Images and for last 2 years for Associated Press. Now continues to document the war as independent photographer and filmmaker working with different media and being mainly focused on documentaries. George Polk award winner, winner of Documentary prise from American society of cinematographers, together with the team received awards on Sundance Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Stockholm International Film Festival, DocAviv, Docudays UA, Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Award (2026): Won the Silver Baton for excellence in journalism, was shortlisted for Academy Awards 2026 and nominated for BAFTA 2026.

Olena Bachynska – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor. The head of the Department of History of Ukraine and Auxiliary Sciences of History of Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University. Her research focuses on certain aspects of the military-political and sociocultural development of Ukrainian lands in the context of the history of Central and South-Eastern Europe of the late 18th – early 20th centuries. In particular, this is the history of various ethnic and social groups, migration processes and the preservation of collective memory in Southern Ukraine. She has participated in international research programs of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and scholarship program of the Juliusz Mieroszewski Centre for Dialogue (Poland). She is the Laureate of the Mykola Kostomarov Premium of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (in the fields of history, historiography and source studies). 

She is the author of more than 250 scientific publications, including several monographs, in particular “Cossacks in the “post-Cossack” period of Ukrainian history (late 18th – 19th centuries)”.

As part of this scholarship, Olena Bachynska is researching the preservation of the material and intangible cultural heritage of the Ukrainian Cossacks in the 21st century, which is manifested in the use of images and memes in the sociocultural space; names of settlements and streets; modern Ukrainian military units and military call signs, military ranks and award signs; Cossack necropolises and modern monuments, etc. 

Kateryna Buhera is a young researcher and literary editor. She was born and raised in Sumy, Ukraine. During her studies at the National University of Ostroh Academy, she researched the phenomenon of liminality and borderline states in 20^th-century Ukrainian prose. Results of her research were presented at International Student Research Paper Competition in Kremenchuk Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi National University. After completing her MD in 2024, she began her PhD program on the topic «The recreational space of Crimea in 20^th-century Ukrainian prose». Since Kateryna lives in a border town that resists Russia's military and cultural expansion, her research will focus on analyzing everyday life as a site of colonial practices, drawing on selected works in everyday life studies and postcolonial spatial theory. Additionally, she works as a literature editor at the publishing house «Vikhola», preparing books by Ukrainian authors for publication.

Andrii Bystrov is a PhD candidate and lecturer at the Educational and Scientific Institute of Journalism, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. With over 20 years of experience in media management and strategic communications, his academic work bridges the gap between high-level journalism practice and communication theory. His current doctoral research, titled «Conceptual Foundations of Crisis Communication Strategies in Online Media Editorial Offices During the Full-Scale Russian Invasion of Ukraine», examines the structural and editorial transformations of digital newsrooms under the pressures of total war.

Previously, Andrii held leadership roles at Ukraine’s major broadcasters, including 1+1, Ukraine 24, and STB, progressing from investigative reporter to editor-in-chief of news programs. He has also served as a strategic and crisis communications advisor for USAID projects and as program director for Ukrainska Pravda.

Andrii is an active member of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). In 2016, he was named «Journalist of the Month» by the International Journalists' Network (IJNet). 

At „Denkraum Ukraine“, his research focuses on the resilience and strategic adaptation of Ukrainian media during the ongoing conflict.

Hanna Chemerys – PhD (Education), Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Design at Zaporizhzhia National University. Her research focuses on design education, digital and UX/UI design, computer graphics, immersive technologies (AR/VR), and inclusive approaches.

She is a member of the Union of Designers of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Educational Research Association. Chemerys has extensive international academic experience, including research fellowships at Universität Regensburg (Germany), Indiana University (USA), and the CEFRES (Czech Republic/France), where she conducted projects on feminist strategies in wartime art, inclusive design practices, and visual narratives of war and national identity. She is the Laureate of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Award for Young Scientists (2024) for her research on disruptive and immersive technologies in STEAM-oriented design education.  Chemerys serves as an expert for the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance. 
She is the author of more than 150 scientific publications, including those indexed in Scopus and Web of Science.  She serves on the editorial boards of several international academic journals, including the Yearbook of Moving Image Studies (YoMIS, Kiel | Münster), and is a member of the editorial board of the international conference ICETEI 2025 (Scopus-indexed). 

Dr. Roman Chepyshko is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Translation at Chernivtsi National University, Ukraine. His research, grounded in cognitive science, focuses on the mechanisms underlying language acquisition and processing, with particular emphasis on how the human mind constructs and uses language in both everyday communication and in the specialized cognitive activities involved in translation and intercultural mediation. He is especially interested in the interaction between linguistic knowledge, cognitive processes, and contextual factors that shape meaning-making across languages.

He holds a Ph.D. in Second Language Studies from Michigan State University (USA) and an M.A. from National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan), with a research specialization in psycholinguistics. His academic training combines insights from linguistics, cognitive science, and translation studies. With over two decades of international teaching experience in Ukraine, Taiwan, and the United States, his work bridges theoretical approaches to language with their practical application in multilingual and multicultural contexts.

Denys Chyk works at the Department of Foreign Languages and their Teaching Methods at Taras Shevchenko Regional Humanitarian Pedagogical Academy of Kremenets (Ukraine), Ph.D. and D.Sc. in Comparative Literature, Professor in Foreign Languages and their Teaching Methods. 

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2002 and has been teaching English and literature studies since 2002, having passed the way from the teacher to the professor. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Kremenets Comparative Studies and serves as an expert for the National Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education of Ukraine.

His research interests center on imagology, with a focus on representations of the Other and imperial identities, and on how memory and trauma shape modern Ukrainian texts. He is the author of many works on contemporary issues of comparative literature and Ukrainian literature, including the monograph “Longo sed proximus intervallo: жанрові системи української та англійської прози кінця XVIII – середини ХІХ ст.” (“Longo sed proximus intervallo: genre systems of Ukrainian and English prose of the late 18th – mid-19th centuries.”) (2017).

His research has been supported by grants from the University of Regensburg, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the University of Alberta, European University Viadrina, the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the U.S., etc.

Andrii Fesenko is a PhD in History and an Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.” He is a researcher specializing in the study of totalitarian regimes, the socio-economic mechanisms of state violence, and the complex dynamics of state–church relations.

As a fellow of the “Think Space Ukraine” program at the University of Regensburg, Dr. Fesenko conducts research on religious policy, repression, and cultural memory in Ukraine from the Soviet period to the present. His work offers a multidisciplinary analysis of how the religious sphere has been instrumentally controlled and repressed, drawing an important connection between Soviet anti-religious campaigns and contemporary challenges arising from Russian hybrid aggression and religious influence.

By integrating archival research with approaches from Digital Humanities, Dr. Fesenko’s scholarship contributes to the decolonization of Ukrainian historical memory and strengthens cultural resilience. He is an active member of the Ukrainian Association of Researchers of Religion and the Workshop for the Academic Study of Religion, where his expertise is regularly sought in public discussions on the preservation of national identity and the reinterpretation of Ukraine’s totalitarian past.

Dr. Oleksandr Fisun is a professor and the head of the Political Science Department at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine. His research primarily focuses on Ukrainian politics and post-Soviet transformations, as well as the formal and informal political institutions in comparative, regional, and global contexts. 

Over the past decade, Dr. Fisun has held visiting fellowships at various academic institutions, including the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies, the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at George Washington University, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University.

Dr. Fisun's publications include the book "Democracy, Neopatrimonialism, and Global Transformations" (Kharkiv, 2006) as well as numerous chapters and articles on comparative democratization, informal politics, neopatrimonialism, and regime change in Ukraine and post-Soviet Eurasia. 

His current research interests focus on Ukraine’s political regime trajectories since independence, with a special emphasis on the interplay between formal and informal political institutions at both national and regional levels. As a DU Fellow, he plans to examine subnational politics and local governance in Ukraine after the decentralization reform, which has significantly strengthened the societal resilience of Ukraine’s regions during the full-scale Russian invasion.

Iuliia Gernego – DrSc in Finance, Money and Credit, Professor of Corporate Finance and Controlling Department, Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman.

Dr. Iuliia Gernego conducts her research and teaching activity in the fields of venture financing, ESG projects financing, social investment management, including environmental and social risk management, investments in environmental innovation and their IP protection, sectoral finance and digital technologies.

She was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at State University of New York at Potsdam, USA (2025 - 2026), Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, Germany (2023) and at Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Poland (2025). Iuliia got Master’s Degree in Intellectual Property and New Technologies, having completed the Program jointly organized by the Jagiellonian University of Krakow, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland (2025). She is alumni of the Lane Kirkland Scholarship Program at Wroclaw University in Poland (2023).

Iuliia Gernego is a Visiting Research Fellow of the “Denkraum Ukraine” project at the University of Regensburg, where she is researching the digitalization impact on resilience of relocated business in wartime (2026).

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Julia Elena Grieder (she/her) is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Basel, specialising in the history of minorities in postwar Ukraine, with a particular focus on the western border regions. Her dissertation, “Defying Soviet Assimilation: Non-Titular National and Religious Minorities in Soviet Transcarpathia and the Lviv Region,” is part of the SNSF PRIMA project “Red Tower of Babel: The Soviet Minorities Experiment in Interwar Ukraine,” led by Prof. Dr. Olena Palko at the University of Basel.

Tetiana Hoshko is a Professor of History at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), where she has been teaching since 2004. Previously, she worked at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and at research institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. She received her Doctor of Historical Sciences degree from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 2019.

Her research focuses on two main areas: (1)social and legal history of early modern towns in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with particular attention to Magdeburg law and urban communities in the Ruthenian lands; (2) the intellectual and social history of the Ukrainian scholarly émigré community after the Second World War. She is the author and editor of several monographs on urban history and legal culture. Her recent work explores the academic and everyday life of the Ukrainian émigré scholars in the 1940s-1950s.

Tetiana Hoshko heads the Historical-Anthropological Seminar at UCU and co-leads the Ukrainian-Polish seminar on urban history. She is also a member of the International Historical Advisory Council of the project “Ukrainian History – Global Initiative.”

Prof. Hoshko has held fellowships and grants at leading international institutions, including research centres at Harvard University, the Universities of Alberta, Münster, Jena, and Freiburg.

Olena Humeniuk is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University. Born in Kyiv. Was graduated from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Faculty of History. Also worked at Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and was member of the Ukrainian-Polish Forum of Historians in 2015 – 2017. She was fellow of numerous scholarship programs in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. The spheres of her interest are the issue of the Ukrainian emigration in Europe in 1920 – 1939, problems of national memory, Ukrainian-Polish cooperation in the XX century. Now she works at the project – From soldier to student: the path of Ukrainian emigrant in Poland at the first half of 1920es.

Doctor of Legal Sciences; Associate Professor of Civil Law at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University; visiting lecturer at Leibniz Universität Hannover. Member of the Academic Advisory Council at the Supreme Court and a member of the Sectoral Expert Council (Specialty 081 – Law) of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance.

Author of over 100 academic publications addressing issues of tort and contract law, private international law, reparations policy, compensation for war-related damage, and human rights. His latest book, published in 2025, addresses the issue of causation in tort law. Took part in a project on civil liability for human rights violations, organized by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (University of Oxford). Was a fellow of the Virtual Ukrainian Institute for Advanced Studies (VUIAS).

Collaborated with a number of international institutions and organisations as an expert and legal researcher.

As a legal analyst at the Institute of Legislative Ideas, Professor Karnaukh researches legal mechanisms for remedying damage caused by the Russian Federation’s armed aggression against Ukraine, including the confiscation of aggressor-state assets and the development of sanctions policy, with particular focus on the case law of the High Anti-Corruption Court concerning sanctions in the form of asset confiscation.

PAVLO KHUDISH, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and the Claims Conference University Partnership in Holocaust Studies lecturer at Uzhhorod National University (Ukraine). Specializing in Holocaust studies and Jewish history in the Carpathian region, Dr. Khudish’s current research explores the aftermath of the Holocaust in Transcarpathia, focusing on restitution, interethnic relations, and postwar antisemitism. In 2018, his research project received an award for young scholars from Yad Vashem’s Moshe Mirilashvili Center. He has held prestigious fellowships, including Judith B. and Burton P. Resnick postdoctoral fellowship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2019). In 2023, he held a nonresidential fellowship at the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. His most recent article co-authored with Raz Segal and László Csősz entitled, Jews and Roma in the Carpathian Region and Southern Slovakia: Uncovering Historical Relations and Entangled Destruction, published in Journal of Genocide Research (2025).

Dr. Mykhailo Kostiv is the chairman of the Research Department for Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes at the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide (Kyiv, Ukraine). He manages and implements a range of projects in oral and digital history (expeditions for recording the interviews with the Holodomor witnesses, online map of the mass graves of 1932-1933 genocide victims etc). In 2021, he defended his Ph.D. dissertation Regional Press of the Ukrainian SSR as an Instrument of Communist Propaganda in Chernihiv Region (1929–1933). In 2025, he co-edited the collection of documents: The current hardships will soon be forgotten: Documents and Texts of the Holodomor Denial. His research interests include Soviet propaganda of the 1920s and 1930s, the history of the Holodomor, and the history of 20th-century Ukraine. He also studies the efforts of Ukrainian emigre organizations in Europe and North America to raise awareness about the Holodomor worldwide. 

Oles Koterlin is a PhD candidate in Law and Senior Lecturer at Maqsut Narikbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, where he is also a Research Assistant at the Research School for Administrative and German Law. His research focuses on public law, animal law, and environmental law, with particular attention to the legal frameworks governing the treatment of animals in crisis and post-conflict settings. 

He holds a Bachelor of Law from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and a Master of International Law from Maqsut Narikbayev University. Before joining academia, he worked with Ukrainian civil society organizations on project coordination, policy analysis, and international partnerships. He has participated in several German-Ukrainian-Kazakh academic programs organized in cooperation with the German Foundation for International Legal Cooperation (IRZ) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He is an expert of the Center for Animal Law at Maqsut Narikbayev University.

As a Denkraum Ukraine Fellow, he is conducting research on the legal regulation of stray and abandoned animals in Ukrainian cities and communities affected by the Russian-Ukrainian war, examining legislative gaps and developing normative proposals for humane population management during wartime and post-war reconstruction.

Andrii Krasniashchykh (born 1970) is a lecturer (since 1992) and an associate professor (since 2000) at the Department of the Foreign Literature and Classic Philology in V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Author of more than fifty scientific publications in Ukrainian and international scientific journals.

He has been invited and given lectures on the topic of related phenomena, namely the revision of the imperial and Soviet heritage during the Russian-Ukrainian war – at the University of Regensburg (2015), the Munich Institute of Foreign Languages and Translators

(2022), the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø (2023), the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (2025), etc. He was three times a participant of festival-symposiums of Ukrainian and German writers “Eine Brücke aus Papier” (2016, 2017, 2022). He was twice a participant in the Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna) project “Documenting Ukraine” (2022, 2023).

His essays and articles were translated into German and published by “Literaturportal Bayern”. The Sur-Place fellowship program at Denkraum Ukraine fellow in 2025. A post to blog the website Denkraum Ukraine.

Roman Liubavskyi is Associate Professor at the Department of History of Ukraine at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, where he is currently working on a monograph entitled “Socialist Cities in the Ukrainian SSR: Idea, Implementation, and Legacy.” His research offers a perspective on the history and present condition of socialist urban districts in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kryvyi Rih through three analytical dimensions: symbolic, spatial, and vernacular.

Roman studied history at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. He defended his PhD dissertation on the everyday life of industrial workers in Kharkiv during the 1920s–1930s. This topic also formed the basis of his first monograph. He has participated in numerous summer schools, workshops, and seminars on urban studies, memory politics, and Holocaust studies, including its research and teaching.

From 2019 to 2021, he served as project leader and coordinator of the research group within the international scholarly project “Practices of Self-Representation of Multinational Cities in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Era,” supported by the Kowalsky Program and the Contemporary Ukraine Studies Program of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. The project resulted in a collective monograph, in which Roman contributed a chapter and served as section editor.

Dr. Nazar Lukavetskyy is an Associate Professor, physician, and researcher specializing in oncology at the Lviv Medical University and Lviv Cancer Centre, a position he has held since 2003. He completed his medical degree and doctoral studies at Lviv Medical University between 1995 and 2003, later earning his PhD in 2011.

Dr. Lukavetskyy has pursued extensive international postgraduate training across Europe, strengthening his expertise in modern cancer diagnosis and treatment. In 2012, he was a visiting doctor (ESMO-fellowship) at the Department of Hematology and Internal Oncology of the University of Regensburg, Germany. Earlier in his career, he also completed visiting doctor placements and advanced courses in EU, including specialized oncology and medicine training at leading institutions such as University Hospital Essen, University Hospital Ulm, and the Technical University of Munich.

With over two decades of academic and clinical experience, Dr. Lukavetskyy combines patient care, teaching, and research, contributing to the advancement of oncology practice and medical education in Ukraine and internationally. His scientific interests include the impact of large-scale demographic shifts—particularly population ageing and forced migration—on health systems, social vulnerability, and public policy in contexts of crisis and recovery.

Olena Lytvyn is an Associate Professor at the International Finance Department of the Educational and Scientific Institute of International Relations at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, where she plays a pivotal role in fostering international cooperation, advancing research, and shaping the next generation of finance and policy experts. Over the course of her career, she has engaged in numerous high-level international programs and collaborations, including at the George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs & Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (2025), Estonian Business School (2023), ICHEC Brussels Management School, Belgium (2019), College of Europe Natolin Campus, Poland (2019), Institute for European Studies of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, Vienna Diplomatic Academy, Austria (2016), and the Joint Vienna Institute, IMF, Austria (2011). Her scholarly work spans sustainable development, European integration, investment and business stimulation, as well as digital transformation and innovative technologies in the economy. Through her research and international engagement, Olena has contributed significantly to bridging academic insights with practical strategies for socially responsible business practices and inclusive economic development.

Currently, she leads the project “Strengthening Sustainable Social Responsibility of Ukrainian Enterprises in the Post-War Recovery: Lessons from Germany”, which positions Ukrainian enterprises as key agents of the nation’s post-war reconstruction. Recognizing that rebuilding Ukraine requires more than infrastructure restoration, Olena’s initiative focuses on embedding sustainable social responsibility practices into business operations, aligning them with European Union standards, ESG criteria, and Sustainable Development Goals. Drawing inspiration from Germany’s post-World War II experience, where socially responsible enterprises were central to workforce reintegration, social protection, housing reconstruction, and long-term stability, the project aims to adapt these lessons to Ukraine’s unique post-conflict context. Under her leadership, the project seeks to strengthen enterprise capacity, promote public–private partnerships, and create coordinated, impactful CSR strategies that advance social cohesion, environmental restoration, and inclusive growth, ensuring that Ukraine’s recovery is resilient, sustainable, and aligned with international best practices.

Vadym Miroshnychenko is a cultural studies scholar, writer, translator, and literary critic. He holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, where he currently works as a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Cultural Studies and Museology. From 2022 to 2024, he was a Associate Professor at the Departments of Cultural Studies and Philosophy at the Ukrainian Catholic University, where he taught the courses «Ideology in the Discourse of the Humanities» and «Philosophical Texts». In 2023, he received a research fellowship from the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) for his project «The Deconstruction of Incognito and a New Philosophical Language». In 2025, he received a fellowship from the Center for Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies – Think Space Ukraine (TSU), University of Regensburg (UR) for his project «Ukrainian Poetry During Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion: Representation of the Concept of the Body».

In 2024, his collection of avant-garde texts «Māteria» was published by Kyiv-based publisher Komubook. That same year, Lviv-based publishing house Kontur released his Ukrainian translation of Catherine Malabou’s book «Pleasure Erased: The Clitoris Unthought». He co-founded the intellectual community Plateforme 15 and the media hub Baudelaire. He is currently a co-curator of the translation project Partisans of Culture and serves as a literary critic for the journal Krytyka. 

Vadym Miroshnychenko is the author of over 170 academic and popular science publications in scholarly journals and online media in Ukraine, France, and Poland, exploring topics in cultural theory, ideology, literature, and philosophy. His research interests focus on the deconstruction of the body and bodihood, the rethinking of the concepts of poetry and writing, the ideological implications of culture, and French Theory. 

As part of his current fellowship, he is working on the project «Ideology and Public Opinion in Ukrainian Military Essay Writing».

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.ua/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=uk&hl=uk&user=hj2GHq8AAAAJ 

Marja Nesterova is Dr. Sci. in Philosophy of Science (2016) and Full Professor (2017), a certified management consultant (CMC), facilitator, mediator, and researcher working at the intersection of diversity management, governance, and social innovation in education, with a current focus on digital ethics and social anthropology. She is Head of the Centre of Social Innovation in Education at Dragomanov Ukrainian State University (Kyiv, Ukraine), where she leads research and university–community inclusion projects. Her research interests include forced migration and inclusion, intercultural competence, social cohesion, resilience, and global governance, as well as the role of digital transformation in contemporary social change. Alongside her academic work, she serves as Vice President of the Ukrainian Association of Management Consultants (CMC Ukraine) and President of the Association of Researchers of EU Values in Education (AREVE), combining academic research with practical consulting in community and regional development. 

She has held visiting professorships in Italy (Milan, Verona, Genoa) and has authored more than 200 academic and popular science publications in Ukraine, Italy, Baltia, Poland, etc. She is currently involved in several European and national research, education and social projects focused on social innovation, diversity and inclusion governance, community development, and digital ethics.

Within the Denkraum Ukraine Fellowship, her project “Social Polarization and Forced Migration Challenges for the Ukrainian Society Recovery” explores the impact of forced migration on social cohesion and post-war recovery in Ukraine from a comparative and transnational perspective.

Aurika PASKAR — Head of the Department of Procedural Law, Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, Ukraine. PhD in Law. Practicing Attorney.

Born in Chernivtsi Region. In 2003, obtained a Master of Laws degree from the Faculty of Law of Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University. From 2004 to 2007 pursued postgraduate studies at the Department of Justice of the Faculty of Law.

In 2010, defended a PhD dissertation entitled “Civil Procedural Legal Relations: Structural and Functional Analysis” in the specialty 12.00.03 – Civil Law and Civil Procedure; Family Law; Private International Law, and was awarded the academic degree of Candidate of Legal Sciences (PhD in Law).

From 2006 to 2010, worked as an Assistant at the Department of Justice of the Faculty of Law. In 2011, appointed Associate Professor. Since 2021 heading the Legal Clinic of the Faculty of Law of the University, coordinating students’ activities in providing free legal aid to vulnerable groups of the population. From October 2022 to February 2023, worked in Brussels as EU Legal Project Manager at the Council of the Notariats of the European Union, conducting research and preparing analytical materials for EU legal professionals regarding Ukrainian legislation in the field of notarial activities. From October 2022 to June 2023, affiliated with the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium as Laureate of a Special Science, Arts and Peace Award. In January 2026, elected Head of the Department of Procedural Law.

Her research interests include European standards of justice, access to court, provision of legal aid, reasonableness of legal costs, development of e-justice, etc. Author of academic publications, textbooks, and methodological materials, and developer of online courses. 

Combines academic activity with legal practice, integrating academic research with the practical application of law.

Valeriia Poiedynok is a Professor of Economic Law at the Institute of Law, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine) with over 20 years of teaching and research experience. 

She contributed to numerous international educational and research projects funded by USAID, DAAD, GIZ, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and others. She coordinated the double-degree master’s program Ukrainian and European Legal Studies in association with Mykolas Romeris University (Vilnius, Lithuania), and served as Head of the Centre for European Studies at the Institute of Law. She is a member of the Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia Business and Human Rights Association (CEEBHRA), and the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). 

As a national expert, she supported Ukraine’s EU accession process, assisting the Ukrainian government in preparing presentations for bilateral screening meetings and providing commentary on draft legislation. 

Prof. Poiedynok’s areas of teaching and research include Ukrainian and EU еconomic law, international trade and investment law, alternative dispute resolution, and business and human rights. Her publications address corporate sustainability and responsible business conduct, economic regulation and investment policy, and Ukraine’s accession to the EU, including issues of post-war reconstruction and modernisation. In her teaching she emphasises interdisciplinary approach, practical case-solving and experiential learning. 

Benedikt Schulz, born in 1983, is a radio journalist who works as a host and writer for Deutschlandfunk and WDR. He is a specialist reporter for the religion desk, where he has focused extensively on the Eastern Orthodox Churches in recent years. His research trips have taken him to Estonia, Kosovo, Serbia, and India in recent years. For many years, he has been following the conflict between the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine and has held regular discussions with representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

Iana Selikova is a postgraduate student at the Department of Preschool Pedagogy and Psychology of the Oleksandr Dovzhenko Glukhiv National Pedagogical University (specialty 012 Preschool Education). The topic of her dissertation is: “Pedagogical conditions for the formation of social and emotional literacy in children of senior preschool age”.
Her scientific interests include preschool education, social and emotional development of preschoolers, inclusive and bilingual education of preschool children.

As part of this scholarship, she studies the impact of martial law factors in Ukraine (children staying in shelters during the alarm; long power and water outages; disruption of the day and sleep regime) on the level of emotional intelligence and social interaction skills in children of senior preschool age.

The purpose of the research project is also to determine the characteristics of the socio-emotional state of children in preschool educational institutions of Ukraine and to develop a methodology for forming psychological resilience and socio-emotional literacy of preschoolers in the context of a crisis situation in the country.

Prof. Dr. Halyna Shumytska is a sociolinguist and has been affiliated with Uzhhorod University since 2005, where she held various positions, including Dean of the Faculty of Philology (2013–2021). In 2022, she became a professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Work & the Head of the Research Center for Sociology of Language.

Prof. Dr. Shumytska’s research contributions include her PhD thesis on word formation in the North Lemko dialects (2001) and her habilitation on the language situation in Zakarpattia (Transcarpathian region) (2021). Prof. Dr. Shumytska has co-authored school textbooks on the Ukrainian language for classes taught in Hungarian.

Her advanced training includes internships in journalism at the BBC in London, the FOJO Media Institute in Sweden, and the Free University of Bolzano, among others. She has also managed and participated in various international projects addressing language diversity and minority languages, notably the “Contested Language Diversity – Dealing with Minority Languages in post-Soviet Ukraine” project (Germany, 2020 – 2023).

Her expertise extends to sociolinguistics, Ukrainian dialectology, social communications, and multilingual education. Prof. Dr. Shumytska has also served as an expert for the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities since 2020 and is a member of the Sociolinguistic Commission at the International Committee of Slavists (since 2022).

For more (detailed) information, please follow the link: https://shumytska.ukr.ceo/halyna-shumytska/

Galyna Starodubets - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Professor of the Department of the World History of the Zhytomyr Ivan Franko State University and the Head of the Laboratory for the Study of the Soviet Past of the Stalin Era. 

Her research focuses on the history of Stalinism as a political system. Professor Starodubets examines the everyday life of Soviet people during the Stalinist period, the repressive practices of the 1920s–1940s, and the policies of the Stalinist regime toward national minorities. 

She is the author of more than 300 scientific publications, including several monographs, in particular “Missionaries of the Red Power (Party-Soviet Nomenclature of Western Ukrainian Regions in 1944–early 1946). 

In recent years, she has participated in several international research programs. In 2022–2023, she was a participant in the scholarship program at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU) (Germany) and in the “Research in Ukraine” scholarship program of the Juliusz Mieroszewski Centre for Dialogue (Poland). In 2025, she participated in the Moldova–Leipzig Institute (MIL) Summer School (Germany) and received a grant from the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society (USA). The research conducted within the framework of these scholarships and grants focused on the everyday life of Soviet people under Stalinist repression. 

As part of this scholarship, she is researching the policies of the Soviet authorities toward representatives of the German national minority living in the Volyn–Zhytomyr region. The research is based on archival investigative files of repressed Soviet citizens of German nationality. 

More detailed information can be found here: https://scholar.google.com.ua/citations?user=TgHCEVoAAAAJ&hl=uk 

Oleksandr Starosta (born 1994) is a philologist, educator, and translator. Assistant Professor at the Department of Ukrainian and Foreign Literature and Methods of Teaching in Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National University (Ternopil, Ukraine). He teaches literature-based courses and conducts research on Ukrainian literature of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as comparative studies. He is a team member of the research project Ukrainian Identity in Language Practices and Literary Discourse funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Oleksandr holds an MA and a PhD in Ukrainian Philology (Uzhhorod National University, Ukraine). He defended his PhD thesis titled Volodymyr Samiilenko’s Poetic Universe in 2024.

Oleksandr Starosta is also an English-Ukrainian book translator for the Laboratory Publishing House (Kyiv, Ukraine). Among his translations are Steven Pinker’s Rationality (in co-authorship) and Antony Beevor’s Berlin: The Downfall 1945.

Since 2021, he has volunteered as a tutor for the non-governmental organization ZNOvU, which helps Ukrainian high school graduates affected by the Russian invasion pass qualifying exams to enter Ukrainian universities.

Viktoriia Strilets is a Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, and Head of the Department of International Economics and International Economic Relations at Poltava University of Economics and Trade, as well as Chair of the Board of the NGO “Way2Grow”. Her research focuses on the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), state support for business, and Ukraine’s post-war economic recovery.

She is the author of more than 180 academic publications. She has developed 9 distance learning courses, including the course “Global Digital Ecosystem”.

In 2022–2023, she was a fellow of the French ANR/PAUSE program and conducted research at Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne (France) within projects related to the EU SME digital ecosystem. She has extensive experience in international academic mobility and training under Erasmus+ programs (Romania, Spain, Poland, Cyprus), enhancing her expertise in digital technologies, sustainable business, and critical thinking. She is a recipient of the Scholarship of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for Young Scientists – Doctors of Sciences (2025). She actively integrates research, teaching, and practical engagement, applying international digitalization experience to strengthen Ukraine’s economic resilience.

Within the framework of her current fellowship, Dr. Strilets will conduct research focused on the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises as a strategic tool for Ukraine’s economic recovery.

Yuriy Syerov is an Associate Professor at Lviv Polytechnic National University, Department of Social Communications and Information Activities, Ukraine. He holds a PhD in Engineering Science in mathematical modeling and software systems. His academic work bridges digital communication studies, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and information security.

Dr. Syerov is the author or co-author of more than 200 research publications. His research focuses on social network analysis, online community management, digital governance, sentiment and narrative modeling, and the resilience of digital ecosystems during crises. He has participated in numerous international research initiatives, projects, and scholarships. Beyond research, he actively contributes to the academic community as a reviewer for high-impact journals and as a conference organizer in the fields of digital society and information systems.

His current research investigates global civic opinion on Ukraine during the war through large-scale sentiment and narrative analysis of multilingual Reddit discourse (2020–2025). By integrating computational methods with discourse and leadership analysis, he explores how digital platforms shape international solidarity, moral framing, and democratic narratives in times of conflict.

Yevhenii Tkachenko is an Associate Professor at the Department of Constitutional Law at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Ukraine). His academic interests focus on the constitutional principles of equality and justice, public authority and governance, human and minority rights, national and ethnic relations, citizenship, civic participation, and interactive teaching methods. He is the author of approximately 100 scholarly publications in Ukrainian and English.

Since 2022, he has been a co-founder and active member of the Civic Educators’ Association NGO. His research activities include participation in several international academic initiatives and fellowships. In 2023–2024, he was a Fellow of the Virtual Ukraine Institute for Advanced Study (Open Society University Network / CEU Institute of Advanced Studies), working on issues related to the protection of national and ethnic minorities. He has also been affiliated with the CEFRES non-residential fellowship programme since May 2023.

Tkachenko contributed as a researcher to the SUPER project (Supporting Ukraine’s Progress on EU Reforms) under the EUI Widening Europe Programme and participated in a German-funded research project on restorative justice and the rights of the Crimean Tatar people (2024). In 2025–2026, he serves as a Non-Resident Academic Associate at the VCU–Davis Center (USA) and lectured at Central European University in October 2025 on minorities in war-torn Ukraine.

Oksana Tyshchenko-Monastyrska, PhD, is a researcher at the Department of Ukrainian Languages ​​at the Potebnia Institute of Linguistics (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). Her research interests focus on the Turkic languages ​​of Ukraine, with particular emphasis on Krymchak, the Crimean dialect of Karaim, and Crimean Tatar. In 2018, she published a monograph in Ukrainian, entitled Порівняльні конструкції у кримськотатарській мові. Структура і функціонування (Comparative constructions in the Crimean Tatar language. Structure and use; Naukova Dumka Publishing).

ORCID: 0000-0001-8515-1657

Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com.ua/citations?user=Z2bL5YQAAAAJ&hl=uk 

Burkhard von Grafenstein works as a freelance journalist, photographer, and author. 

Grafenstein majored in political science and law, earning a bachelor’s degree in politics and law from the University of Münster and a master’s degree in democratic studies from the University of Regensburg. His highly acclaimed master’s thesis from 2023 examined the war in Ukraine within the theoretical framework of Samuel P. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” and focused in particular on the causes of the conflict’s prolonged duration, its high death toll, and the risk of escalation. In addition, Grafenstein has published on political science topics as well as on local, economic, student, military, and intelligence history. He has published journalistic articles in, among others: Mittelbayerische Zeitung, Regensburger Zeitung, Idowa, Onetz, Regensburg Digital, and Der Spiegel. In doing so, he has repeatedly addressed issues related to Russia and Ukraine. 

An overview of Grafenstein’s wide-ranging interests, samples of his work, and links can be found on his blog “Suchen – Beleuchtungen – Reflexionen” (https://grafenstein.wordpress.com).

As part of his fellowship at Denkraum Ukraine, Grafenstein is examining aspects of Western support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.

Anna Yanenko is Deputy Head of the Research Department of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and Museums History at the National Preserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” (Ukraine) and a Non-Residential Fellow at CEFRES (UAR 3138 CNRS-MEAE, France). She holds a PhD in Archaeology (2013) from the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Her research focuses on the visual history of Ukrainian museums and archaeology during the 1920s–1930s, museum iconography, provenance studies, and the role of museums in Soviet ideology. Since 2022, she has been actively involved in the preservation and digitization of cultural heritage under wartime conditions. As a Denkraum Ukraine fellow, she is working on a photo album-catalogue documenting the destruction and preservation of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv in the 1930s, based on photographs from the National Preserve "Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra" collection. She co-founded the Research Seminar on the History of the Humanities in Ukraine and coordinates conferences on the history of the humanities, archaeology, and museums. She is a member of the Ukrainian Association of Archaeologists, ICOM Ukraine, and the International Federation of Public History.

Daria Yashkina – Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Sociology, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.

Daria Yashkina conducts her research and teaching activity in the fields of gender studies, sociology of everyday life and transformations of lifestyles in (post)modern societies.

She has participated as a junior researcher in international projects, including Risk and Crisis Management Education for a Safer Ukraine (SAFE Ukraine); Gender Studies and War Challenges in Resilience of Universities in Ukraine: Networking for Excellence in Teaching and Institutional Development; and Gender Education for Foreign Students (UNESCO).

In 2023, she defended her PhD dissertation on solo-living lifestyle in the context of (post)modernity. In 2024, she was a researcher at Ghent University within the Eureast Platform.

Daria Yashkina was a Fellow of the Ukraine Research Network@ZOiS at Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS). Her research focused on how universities and research institutions in frontline regions preserve human capital, as well as on the motivations that encourage academics to remain and continue their work under conditions of war. Her case study examined the city of Kharkiv.

Ilami Yasna studies collective borderline conditions, such as war, and their influence on sociality, everyday knowledge, and identity, addressed phenomenologically. Living and working in Ukraine, she denotes people who remain during war “the Stayers” a concept central to her research. 

She holds degrees in philosophy and religion studies and is completing her sociology PhD at the Polish Academy of Sciences. 

Previously, she was a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and worked as junior editor at Philosophical Thought and an editor’s assistant at Sociology: Theory, Methods, Marketing. 

As a member of the Council of Young Scientists of the Institute of Philosophy, she led projects on wartime discourse, public philosophy, and otherness, resulting in special issues of Philosophical Thought under her scientific edition. She also led initiatives developing digital infrastructure for Ukrainian philosophy, including the first online archive of the Philosophical Thought.

Since 2024 she has had research stays in Vienna and Munich and has received grants from Polish NAWA and the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

As part of the “Denkraum Ukraine” fellowship, she analyzes wartime Ukrainians’ diaries, studying how storytelling becomes a collective way of “reconstructing reality” in borderline conditions. 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2023-9732 

The project’s website: https://thestayer.org 

Dmytro Yesypenko is Coordinator of the Sustainable Ukrainian Canadian Heritage Program at the Kule Centre for Ukrainian and Canadian Folklore and a Research Assistant at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta. He is a researcher and educator specializing in Ukrainian studies, Slavic cultures, and languages.

Dmytro holds a Candidate of Sciences degree in Philology from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Transnational and Comparative Literatures at the University of Alberta. His dissertation examines representations of epidemics in nineteenth-century Ukrainian and Polish literatures. Dmytro has extensive teaching and research experience. He has delivered courses and invited lectures on Ukrainian language, literature, and Polish–Ukrainian cultural relations at universities in Australia, Canada, Ukraine, and the United States.

He is the author of Borys Hrinchenko’s Novellas: The History of Texts and Texts in History (2015) and co-author of Lena and Thomas Gushul: Life in Front and Behind the Camera (2022–2023). Other publications are available via the link.

During his stay in Regensburg, Dmytro will work with the Skytaltsi (“Wanderers”) collection—postwar correspondence between Ukrainian displaced persons in Europe and Ukrainian Canadian communities (1945–1962), preserved by the Ukrainian Women’s Association of Canada.

Dr. Olga Zaitseva-Herz is an ethnomusicologist and musicologist working at the intersection of Ukrainian music, war, displacement, and digital culture. She received her PhD from the University of Alberta in 2024, where, funded by the Kule Centre for Ukrainian and Canadian Folklore, she completed a dissertation examining Ukrainian songs that traveled from the Habsburg Empire to Canada, tracing their transmission, transformation, and afterlives in cultural memory across migration and time. Her current research examines Ukrainian popular music, digital media, AI-generated songs, disinformation, and cultural resistance in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Drawing on ethnomusicology, sound studies, digital ethnography, and media analysis, she investigates how music mediates narratives of resistance, belonging, public discourse, and global visibility. Her work also engages Holocaust-related musical materials and memory cultures, particularly in relation to Ukraine. At Think Space Ukraine, University of Regensburg, she is developing a project on AI-generated songs, information warfare, and cultural resistance, with a focus on digital circulation and on the sonic strategies through which Ukrainian musical actors respond to war.

Nataliia Zalietok is Head of the Department for Archival Studies at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Archival Affairs and Records Keeping in Kyiv, Ukraine. She specializes in the history of women’s military service in the 20th and 21st centuries and in archival studies. In 2022, she defended her Doctor of Historical Sciences dissertation at the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

She has held numerous international fellowships, including at Northwestern University, Indiana University Bloomington, Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Imre Kertész Kolleg), Freie Universität Berlin, and the European University Viadrina.

Her current research examines media discourse surrounding Ukrainian servicewomen since 2014 across civilian, military, and feminist online publications. As a Denkraum Fellow, she is preparing a detailed analysis of two surveys of servicewomen, identifying key patterns and challenges related to media representation and the provision of gender-appropriate military clothing as a part of her larger study. 

Photo credits: Heide Fest