30th Annual Undergraduate Colloquium on Russian and Eurasian Studies

The Davis Center has hosted the annual Undergraduate Colloquium on Russian and Eurasian Studies since 1996, when Kathryn W. Davis first committed her support to showcase work in the field by students from Harvard, Wellesley, and Wheaton colleges. Undergraduate speakers will present their research findings and engage in lively Q&A sessions with an audience of fellow students, faculty, family, and friends. We invite you to join us in celebrating undergraduate research and engagement in the region.

Chair: Dan Epstein, Assistant Director, Scholars without Borders, Davis Center

Sofia Melnychuck, Harvard College (2026): "Leveraging the morphologically-rich structure of Lithuanian to improve large language model performance and boost AI equity."
Elodie Sinclair, Harvard College (2026): "How does Valentin Rasputin’s Farewell to Matyora demonstrate the underlying current of criticism within rural village communities towards modernization and industrialization in the Soviet Union in the 1970s?"
William Bazin, Wheaton College (2026): "A Chechen Genocide? Evaluating Russian Actions in the Chechen Wars, 1994-2000"
Anna Gamburd, Harvard College (2027): "Yukos Shareholders v. Russia & Nazi-era Reparations Claims: Sovereignty in Comparative Perspective"

Chair: Thomas Remington, Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard University and Goodrich C. White Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science at Emory University.

Julia Dan, Harvard College (2026): "When Community Investments Fail: How Trust Shapes Community Welfare for Roma in Romania'”Annie Mulvaney, Wheaton College (2026): "Qazaqstan and Russia: Where They Stand Today"Feodora Douplitzky-Lunati, Harvard College (2028): "Trade Without Alignment: Georgia's Bet on the Middle Corridor"Dominykas Navickas, Harvard College (2026): "Democratic Backsliding in Semi-presidential regimes: Impact of Non-partisan Presidential Activism on Inhibiting Parliamentary Populism”

Chair: Francoise Rosset, Associate Professor of Russian, Wheaton College

Ziva Benedejcic, Harvard College (2028): "Of True and False Solidarity: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Neo-Slav Movement"
Lily (Las) Southerland, Wheaton College (2026): "The Republic of Georgia Misunderstood: Reclaiming Pride in the Pankisi Valley "
Josephine Adams, Wheaton College (2026): "The Survival of Russian Orthodoxy in the Age of Lenin"
Miruna Cioc, Harvard College (2027): "Reflecting on the Past: Weaponization of Nostalgia in Post-Soviet Media"

Chair: Daria Khitrova, Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University

Ava Winer, Harvard College (2026): "Ballet Bodies: An Ethnographic Study of Georgia’s Ballerinas and their Embodied Craft"
Madi Wieboldt, Wellesley College (2026): "Serving Two Masters: The Material and Spiritual in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons"Ava Tse, Wellesley College (2028): "Pushkin's Dream of Russian Readership: The Morality of Reading in Eugene Onegin"Marina Escandell-Tapias, Wellesley College (2028): "The Case Against Marriage: The Divorce of Poetry and Prose in Karolina Pavlova’s A Double Life"

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Host or Publisher Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies