Career Resources

(Image of alumni speakers at the career conversations webinar)

Graduates of REEESNe institutions comprise an incredibly diverse and extensive potential alumni network. In order to help current students and recent alums pursue REEES-related careers (especially those outside of academia) and identify contacts and career paths beyond those represented in their separate institutions’ alumni networks, we are working to bring together individuals who have studied REEES topics at various network institutions, many of whom have gone on to pursue careers in REEES-related fields. Members of this new alumni network initiative have contributed to various REEESNe projects, including through three REEESNe virtual events that you can access in video format:

Student Careers Panel in Amherst (Streaming from the Spring 2024 Student Conference), featuring speakers who began professional paths as students:

• Jeff Dunn, Research Coordinator at Crude Accountability (B.A. UMass Amherst)
• Jess Chen, Mass MOCA Graduate Curatorial Fellow (then current M.A. Student, Graduate Program in the History of Art, Williams College)
• Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon, Contributing Writer/Commentator for such media outlets as the Kennan Institute’s Russia File, CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC (then current Ph.D. student in History, The University of Pennsylvania)
• John Stachelski, Series Director of Prav Publishing’s Foundations of Eurasianism series (then current Ph.D. student in Slavic Languages & Literatures, Yale University)

Career Conversations in Philadelphia (Streaming from the Spring 2023 Student Conference), featuring:

• Elizaveta Mankovskaya (Princeton University), Associate Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, Saint Joseph’s University
• Spencer Willig (University of Pennsylvania), Trial Attorney, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
• Aaron Schwartzbaum (Haverford College), Columnist and Podcast Host, Foreign Policy Research Institute

U.S.-Russian Politics and First Jobs in REEES Fields Webinar (Fall 2022), featuring:

• The Honorable Roman Popadiuk (Hunter College, CUNY Graduate Center), President of the Diplomacy Center Foundation and former first Ambassador to Ukraine
• Gillian Kemmerer (Columbia University, London School of Economics, Alfa Fellowship in Moscow), Sports and Business Journalist (e.g. Asset TV’s Sportfolio and the Russian daily Sport-Express)
• Joseph Millman (Swarthmore College, Georgia Institute of Technology), Security Engineer at Amazon and former Threat Intelligence Consultant at Recorded Future

Researching and Writing for a Living (Spring 2022), featuring:

• Dimiter Kenarov (Middlebury College, U.C. Berkeley): Freelance journalist (Esquire, The New Yorker, etc.)
• Emma Scally (College of the Holy Cross): Senior Investment Associate at Partners Capital
• Kellie Rivera (Uni. of New Hampshire, Suffolk University): Senior Counsel at Columbia Care
• Ostap Kin (Long Island University, CUNY Grad Center): Archivist at the Zimmerli Museum (Rutgers Uni.) and Translator

“Getting There”: Professionally Beneficial Opportunities Abroad (Spring 2022), featuring:

• Barbara Mozdzierz (Bucknell University, Yale University): Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Mission to the United Nations New York/U.S. Department of State
• Jennifer Ginsburg (Brandeis University, Columbia University): Assistant Program Officer at the National Endowment for Democracy
• Kate Hardin (Wesleyan University, Yale University): Deloitte Executive Director for Energy and Industrials Research
• Sven Haakanson (University of Alaska, Harvard University): Associate Professor and Curator of North American Anthropology at the Burke Museum, University of Washington; former Executive Director of the Alutiiq Museum

Career Conversations and Resumé Workshop Webinar (Fall 2021), featuring:

• Austin Barvin (Wesleyan University, George Washington University): Analyst, US Government Accountability Office
• Dawn Seckler (Colby College, The University of Pittsburgh): Director of Development, Bridgeway Capital
• Aliya Uteuova (University of Maine, Columbia University): Environmental Justice/Data Journalist, The Guardian
• Kate Watters (UMass Amherst, Georgetown University): Co-founder & Executive Director, Crude Accountability

If you would like to have your information included in the alumni database and to be considered as a speaker at future events, please contact Ian MacMillen.

Students and individuals interested in furthering their education and regional expertise can apply to more than ten terminal master’s degree programs housed at REEESNe institutions. These are in addition to the master’s degrees that are incorporated into Ph.D. programs at many of these universities. The courses of study in stand-alone master’s programs comprise a range of professional and intellectual interests in social sciences, language and literature, and journalism, all offered by a range of institutions in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Due to the geographical proximity of REEESNe institutions to one another, students attending these universities find themselves in a unique intellectual and professional environment, which is fostered not only by the institutions themselves, but also by frequent REEESNe event programming that brings together students, faculty, and speakers from all over the region. Please reference the list below for more information on specific institutions’ programs and websites. You can also watch the video above of a recent REEESNe webinar on these institutions’ master’s programs.

Columbia University (stand-alone master’s programs in: Russia, Eurasia, & Eastern Europe: Regional Studies; Russian Translation; Slavic Cultures; Slavic Languages)

Harvard University (stand-alone master’s program in: Regional Studies - Russian, Eastern Europe, & Central Asia)

Hunter College, CUNY (stand-alone master’s program in: Translation & Interpreting - Russian)

Middlebury College (stand-alone master’s programs in: Russian; Applied Languages: Russian)

New York University (stand-alone master’s programs in: Russian & Slavic Studies; Russian & Slavic Studies and Journalism)

University of Pennsylvania (stand-alone, dual master’s program with the European University in St. Petersburg in: Russian & East European Studies)

Yale University (stand-alone master’s program in: European & Russian Studies)

(Video recording of faculty and administrators speaking at the 2021 Master’s Programs webinar)

With studying abroad in Russia currently all but impossible in most cases, many students from U.S. colleges and universities have been wondering where they can go for an intensive or immersive term of Russian language study and practice. To find out, watch these videos from REEESNe’s webinars: the 2023 Study Abroad webinar featured students speaking about their experiences in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, while the 2022 Study Away webinar put students, faculty, and administrators in conversation with representatives of summer intensive programs in the U.S. and of study abroad options in post-Soviet countries like Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan where Russian is spoken widely at the host institution and among parts of the population. (See below for the full list of the programs that REEESNe has identified with active programs in the upcoming academic year and/or in Summer 2022/Summer 2023; those with asterisks [*] participated in the 2022 program representative webinar, and those with tildes [~] had students participate in the 2023 webinar.)

Study away/study intensive in the U.S.

Arizona State University (Arizona)

Bryn Mawr Russian Language Institute (Pennsylvania*)

College of William & Mary ROTC Project GO (Virginia)

Columbia University Russian Practicum (New York)

Middlebury Language Schools (Vermont)

U. Pittsburgh Summer Language Institute (Pennsylvania*) - program poster

Study abroad in Eurasia

American Councils Study Abroad (Armenia*~ and Kazakhstan*~)

Arizona State University (Armenia/Kyrgyzstan)

ASPIRANTUM (Armenia) - testimonial from a Cornell University PhD student

Bard College (Kyrgyzstan*) - program flyer

Brigham Young University Baltic States Internships (Latvia)

Learn Russian in the E.U. (Latvia*~) - program introduction and overview

SRAS (Kyrgyzstan*~ and Georgia*~)

University of Arizona (Kazakhstan*)

Fellowship Opportunity for Individuals Seeking to Study at Foreign Institutions

Boren Awards (numerous former Soviet Republics, including Georgia~; note that Russia and Ukraine are currently listed as possibilities, and it is advisable to check with Boren staff regarding in which countries the Defense Language and National Security Education Office is actually funding study at the moment)