Before coming to the University in Cambridge in 2016 to do a Master's in Heritage Studies, I graduated from a Bachelor's degree in Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin. I discovered my passion for the history and culture of Eastern Europe and Russia during archaeological excavations in Southwestern Russia. During my undergraduate studies, I spent a semester abroad at the History faculty of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul and began working with on heritage projects with museums in Istanbul and Turkey as a whole. 

In 2017, I graduated with Distinction from a MPhil in Cambridge having written a dissertation on the transformation of the heritage landscape of the Russian city Ulyanovsk, the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin, after the Soviet Union's collapse.

Between my MPhil and the start of my PhD at Cambridge in 2018, I interned at the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, and also worked part-time at the Tsitsernakaberd Genocide-Memorial. 

My PhD, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council together with the Cambridge Trust, looks at the 'discovery of the past' in the Soviet Union during the Brezhnev Era (1964-1982), a time in which the Soviet Union saw an explosive growth of museums, archives and public organisations interested in heritage preservation. In 2020, I was able to extend my academic network through a 3-month placement at SciencesPo, Paris, as a CamPo fellow. In 2021, I further pursued my interest in the countries of Eastern Europe through an internship at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Kyiv, Ukraine, where I familiarised myself with the economic and cultural challenges of contemporary Ukraine. 

I expect to submit my doctoral thesis in the first half of 2022. 

I speak German, English, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian as well as a smattering of French and Turkish.