Evangelina Demina is a first-year PhD student in the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia. Evangelina holds M.A. and B.A. in Pedagogy from Yelets Bunin State University in Russia. In 2017, she was performing the duties of a Russian TA at The City University of New York where she spent an academic year as part of Fulbright FLTA program. Evangelina earned her M.A. in Russian Studies from The University of Colorado, Boulder in 2020.
Hilary (Hilly) McCandless-Beard is a first-year graduate student in Slavic Languages and Literatures. She earned her BA in Russian and Eurasian Studies from Colorado College in 2019. Her undergraduate research focused on traditional Russian rye bread and Soviet cuisine. Hilary is currently pursuing graduate studies both as an MA student at the Middlebury Language Schools Davis School of Russian (beginning summer 2019), and as a PhD student in the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia, where she teaches introductory Russian language.
Anna Gomboeva is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Presidential Academy in Novosibirsk, Russia. Anna’s interests include postcolonial studies in the former Soviet Union with primary focus on the literatures of indigenous Siberian writers.
Aaron Thompson is a second-year PhD student in SLL and the president of the Society of Slavic Graduate Students for the 2019-2020 academic year. Aaron received a dual B.A. in Russian and anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2015, and then lived in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he worked for an education consultancy. He takes an interdisciplinary approach to study primarily how Russian literature from 1850-1950 created, supported, and deconstructed ideology, especially ideologies of religious institutions.
