Summer Travel/Research Grant Recipients

CREEES offers up to $2,000 in support for research travel in the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe.
Featured Student Narrative

Dana Phelps, Anthropology PhD, Albania
With generous support from the CREEES Travel Grant, I was able to conclude the preliminary dissertation research phase for my PhD in Anthropology. In 2014, Albania became a candidate for EU membership and I seek to understand in which ways heritage (monuments,museums, and archaeological sites) is positioned for full EU accession. At the same time,Albania is significantly increasing its relations with Turkey. The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) has been intensively active in Albania constructing mosques and restoring Ottoman heritage sites. This summer, through heritage site visits and interviews with government officials, NGOs, and local communities, I came to see the tensions that are present as Albania seeks to “Europeanize” on the one hand and “Islamicize” on the other. One of the goals of this summer’s research was to identify a singular field site where I could study these heritage trends, emerging tensions, and repercussions for Albanian religious identity in one critical setting. I pinpointed the UNESCO listed Ottoman-period city of Gjirokastra as my field site. EU and TIKA heritage projects are proliferating in this “museumcity” and the local community, which is made up of several religions and ethnicities, is likely to be impacted by these initiatives. My doctoral research, thus, will investigate these externally imposed heritage imperatives, the tensions emerging, its impacts upon the Albanian heritagescape, and its significance for Albanian religious identity. Thank you to CREEES for providing me the opportunity to travel to Albania to solidify the foundation of my PhD dissertation research project.
Grant Recipients
2018
Ioanida Costache (Music PhD, 4th Year)- Romania
Beatrice Smigasiewicz (Art & Art History PhD, 1st Year)- Warsaw, Poland
Alexandra Sukalo (History PhD, 2nd Year)- Kyiv, Ukraine
Beata Szymkow (History PhD, 4th Year)- Warsaw, Poland and Lviv, Ukraine
2017
Sabauon Nasseri (History PhD, 2nd Year) - Moscow, Russia
Dustin Condren (Slavic PhD, candidate) - Moscow, Russia
Kristo Nurmis (History PhD, 3rd Year) - Riga, Latvia
Benjamin Kim (REEES ‘17) - Warsaw, Poland
Alexandra Sukalo (History PhD, 2nd Year) - Kyiv, Ukraine
Joshua Tapper (History PhD, 1st Year) - Moscow, Russia
2016
Jinyi Chu, Slavic PhD, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Beijing, Shanghai, and Tula
Nicholas Levy, History PhD, Russia, Poland, and Ukraine
2015
Koji Hirata, History PhD, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Moscow
Will Meadows, M.F.A., Joint Program in Design (Art and Engineering), China, Central Asia, and Italy
Dana Phelps, Anthropology PhD, Albania
Beata Szymkow, History PhD, L'viv, Wroclaw and Krakow
Alina Utrata, History '17, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and the Hague
2014
Jason Cieply, Slavic Languages and Literatures PhD, Russia
Brian Kim, Slavic Languages and Literatures PhD, Finland
Nicholas Levy, History PhD, Moscow, Russia, Kyiv, Ukraine, Warsaw and Dąbrowa Górnicza, Poland
Orysia Kulick, History PhD, Ukraine
Lori Weeks, Anthropology PhD and JD, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
2013
Jason Cieply, Slavic PhD, Ukraine
Markian Dobczansky, History PhD, Ukraine
Lukas Dovern, History PhD, Czech Republic
Emily Grelle , REEES MA ‘13, Russia
Justine Issavi, Anthropology, Turkey
Dennis Keen, REEES MA ‘13, Kazakhstan
Gabor Simonovitz, Political Science PhD, Hungary
Amanda Wetsel, Anthropology PhD, Kyrgyzstan
2012
Kara Downey, Political Science PhD
Alexander Frese, History PhD
Carolin Krahn, Music PhD
Kevin Miller, History PhD
Bruce O'Neill, Anthropology PhD
Maya Rostowska, REEES MA ‘12
Vladimir Troyansky, History PhD