Contributors
We are extremely grateful to Olga Volchkova (Eugene, OR) for allowing us to use an image of her painting, St Cyani (2013), on our homepage. We would also like to thank Mattie Burkert (Director of the Digital Humanities Minor), Franny Gaede (Director of Digital Scholarship Services), Emily West Hartlerode (Director of the Oregon Folklife Network), and Kathryn Thornhill (Associate Librarian of Digital Scholarship) for their advice and support.
Heghine Hakobyan
SIAN Co-Director
Associate Librarian for Slavic, German, and Scandinavian Studies
Heghine works with the research interns on sources for their artist profiles. She is also responsible for the Research Guide and the Bibliography on the Resources webpage.
Azle Malinao-Alvarez
SIAN Web Designer
Interactive Technology Consultant, UO Libraries
Azle designed the SIAN website and advised the directors on best practices in the Digital Humanities. She continues to provide invaluable technical support for the project.
Jenifer Presto
SIAN Co-Director
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Russian
Jenifer runs the classes that the SIAN research interns take. She also works with Heghine on fundraising for the project and outreach to local artist communities.
Research Interns
Meet our teams of talented student researchers. Each quarter we induct a new cohort that takes up a new group of artists.
Spring 2024
John Adair
Research Intern
John is a photographer, videographer, and general storyteller. He is a University of Oregon student majoring in Journalism while working at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on campus. He has worked as a photojournalist, director of photography, film producer, and a social media manager with plans to do even more.
View Website: https://www.johnadairphotographs.com/
Walter Du Ruz Bender
Research Intern
Walter is a graduate student in the History Department. His research focuses on the Soviet Union, Central Asia, and Soviet policy. He is also interested in folk culture and new interpretations of traditional arts.
Sarabeth Johnson
Research Intern
Along with being a watercolorist herself, Sarabeth is a graduate student in the History Department and often researches topics related to gender, trauma, migration, and culture in Russian history. She looks forward to discovering how her experiences with this project will impact her future research.
Alina Turygina
Research Intern
Alina is a graduate student, pursuing a degree in Russophone literature in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. As a Russophone émigré researcher, she is interested in expanding her experience working with immigrant artists beyond literature into other art forms.
Winter 2024
Nessie Kurganova
Research Intern
Nessie is a graduate student pursuing concurrent degrees in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and Language Teaching Studies. As a recent immigrant from Russia and a lover of all things beautiful, she is interested in lived experiences of immigration and their artistic reflections.
Fall 2023
Alina Turygina
Research Intern
Alina is a graduate student in the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies program. Her main research, focused on Russophone emigre literature of the twentieth century, is connected to cultural anthropology, literary theory, multiculturalism, memory studies, and mythmaking.
Spring 2023
Emris Kissel
Research Intern
Emris is a senior double majoring in Anthropology and Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies. They worked as a library student assistant for Heghine Hakobyan in 2022-2023.
Winter 2023
Anna Krinitsyna
Research Intern
As a graduate student in the Language Teaching Studies program at the UO, Anna is interested in multiculturalism, foreign languages, teaching, history, and literature. Through this project, she hopes to learn about and connect with her Slavic roots, and to help spread the word about local immigrant artists.
Lilly Smith
Research Intern
Lilly is a senior majoring in History with a minor in Digital Humanities. She is interested in digital storytelling as a medium for artistic and intellectual work, which connects with a broader audience.