Members

Gruia Badescu, born in Bucharest, Romania, is currently a research fellow at the University of Konstanz, though this academic year he is a fellow in Paris. He has a background in urban design and social sciences and holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of Cambridge, with his research focusing on post-war reconstruction. His work explores cities and memory, as well as the recovery of cities following conflicts and authoritarian regimes.

Natalya Bekhta did her MA in Lviv, Ukraine, her PhD in Giessen, Germany and her postdoc in Helsinki, Finland. Currently, she is heading two research projects at Tampere University in Finland dealing with Utopia, literary theory, philosophy and Eastern Europe after 1989.

Jonas Bornemann works as Assistant Professor of European law at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He is a legal scientist by training, specialising in the field of European constitutional law and migration law. He currently works on the rule of law crisis in Europe, the Schengen area and the reform of EU migration and asylum laws.

Lia Dostlieva (b. Donetsk, Ukraine) is an artist, cultural anthropologist, and essayist. Her art and research practice engage with issues of collective trauma, decolonial narratives, and agency and visibility of vulnerable groups.

She was a participant of the National Pavilion of Ukraine at the 60th Venice Biennale. She has exhibited her works at various international venues, including the Malta Biennale, Kunstinstituut Melly (Rotterdam, the Netherlands), Kolumba Museum (Cologne, Germany), Ludwig Museum (Budapest, Hungary), National Gallery of Art (Vilnius, Lithuania), Tbilisi Photography and Multimedia Museum (Tbilisi, Georgia), National Museum of Fine Arts (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan), and the Latvian National Museum of Art (Riga, Latvia), among others.

Anna Grebinyk is a biochemist, born and educated in Kyiv, Ukraine. She transferred her research to Germany in 2015, where she got a summa cum laude PhD in biology in 2021 from Würzburg University. Since 2022, Anna leads the biolab at the DESY Zeuthen, where she links accelerator physics with biomedicine, using electrons to fight cancer. As a hobby painter, she knows that beauty can always be found, that is why Anna sees cancer as a technological battle to win and believes in the democratic prosperous future even at the darkest times of war in Europe.

Stanisław Krawczyk was born in Konin in Central Poland and currently lives in Warsaw. After studying psychology as well as Polish philology, he did a PhD in the sociology of literature. Currently, his research focuses on national aspects of video games and on the multilingualism of the social sciences and humanities.

Maria Kucheriava was born in the South of Ukraine and currently lives in Kyiv. After studying economics, did a PhD in accounting devoted to issues of data quality assessment. Currently, her research focuses on stimulating the development of a circular economy in Ukraine (rooting the European practice) and international taxation issues. Maria currently works at the “Academy of Financial Management” in Kyiv.

Kateryna Latysh was born in Kharkiv (Ukraine) and currently resides in Vilnius (Lithuania). With a PhD in law, she works as MSCA4Ukraine Fellow on a Digital Forensic, OSINT and Artificial Intelligence project at Vilnius University. Since 2014, she has been teaching at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Kharkiv, Ukraine). Kateryna was involved in several public sector projects, serving as an assistant to a Member of the Canadian (2013) and Ukrainian (2018–2019) Parliament, later as Project manager at the Ministry of Justice and the Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania. She has also practiced as Ukrainian Barrister.

Jana Mende was born in Warburg and currently lives in Halle, Germany. She studied Comparative Literature in Vienna, and did a PhD in Comparative Literature and German Linguistics. Her research focusses on digital literary history in Europe as well as multilingualism and migration in literary studies.

Nazar Pavlyuk was born in Lviv, Ukraine. He studied Inorganic Chemistry at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv from 2013 to 2023, writing his PhD thesis on Magnesium-based alloys for practical applications. Currently his research focusses on technical implementation of specific metal alloys in hydrogen economy, namely as electrochemical Metal-Hydride Batteries and solid state Metal-Hydride Hydrogen Storage.

Michael Martin Richter is a German-Polish researcher and policy expert specializing in Central and Eastern European politics, with a focus on Ukraine’s political economy and anti-corruption reforms. His professional experience includes roles as a Research Fellow at the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Surrey, a Fellow at Harvard University and co-founder of the Warsaw-based Coopernicus think tank.

Denys Shatalov was born in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, and currently lives there. After studying history, hedid a PhD in history. His current research focuses on the entanglement and interaction of imagination, commemoration and memory of World War II and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Oleksandra Shumilova was born in Mykolayiv, Ukraine, where she has also completed a master’s degree in ecology and environmental protection. She holds a doctoral degree in River Science jointly awarded by Free University of Berlin in Germany and University of Trento in Italy. Presently, Oleksandra lives in Berlin and works as a postdoc at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries. Her research covers ecology of intermittent rivers, ecohydraulic and geomorphic controls of biodiversity within river floodplains, and sustainability of water resources during and after armed conflicts.

Katalin Solymosi was born and also currently lives in Budapest, Hungary. She is a biologist, who obtained her PhD in experimental plant biology. In her research related to sustainable agriculture, she aims to understand how plastid structure and function is affected by climate change and environmental pollution. She was founding member and Co-chair of the Hungarian Young Academy and was Chair of the Young Academy of Europe.

Sebastian Willert was born in Hannover. He studied History and lives in Berlin, where he obtained his PhD in Art History. His current research and teaching focus on the forced academic migration of scholars in the 1930s and 1940s and the provenance and translocation histories of archaeological objects to Berlin and Istanbul in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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