2026 TCUP Conference Speakers
Alim Aliev Deputy Director General, Ukrainian Institute; Founder, Crimean Fig Literary Project Alim Aliev is the Deputy Director General of the Ukrainian Institute, as well as a human rights defender, curator of cultural and educational initiatives, and researcher of Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian identity. He is a member of PEN Ukraine, co-founder of the NGO Crimea SOS, and co-author of Mustafa Dzhemilev. Unbreakable, a book on the renowned Crimean Tatar leader. Aliev founded the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar literary project Crimean Fig and initiated Tamırlar, the first digital museum dedicated to the deportation of Crimean Tatars. His essays on Crimean Tatars, Crimea, and Ukrainian identity during wartime appear in Ukrainian and international publications. He previously served as program director of the Crimean House and as a media and communications consultant at pro.mova. A frequent representative of Ukraine at the Council of Europe, European Parliament, OSCE, and the UN Security Council, Aliev was awarded the Order of Merit by the President of Ukraine in 2020. His professional focus includes Ukrainian civil society, multiculturalism, decolonization, and the international representation of contemporary Ukrainian culture. Facebook: facebook.com/alim.aliev |
Yuliya Bidenko HURI Visiting Scholar; Associate Professor, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University Dr. Yuliya Bidenko is a political scientist whose work bridges academic research and civic engagement. She is a HURI Visiting Scholar and an Associate Professor and Guarantor of the Global Studies and World Politics Master’s Program at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Her research focuses on democratic governance, civil society development, and Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, with an emphasis on public engagement, deliberative democracy, and elite politics. She has held fellowships at Carnegie Europe, George Washington University’s Petrach Program on Ukraine, the Free University of Berlin (SCRIPTS), ZOiS, the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Charles University, and the European Humanities University. Beyond academia, Bidenko is an expert for the EU Delegation to Ukraine’s Team Europe network and has collaborated with organizations including Freedom House, IFES, USAID, GIZ, and the OSCE. She is the author of Ukraine: Nations in Transit (2021–2022) and co-founder of the NGOs Liberal Club and Association of Civic Educators. X: @YuliyaBidenko |
Maksym Butkevych Human Rights Defender; Journalist; Veteran of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Maksym Butkevych is a human rights advocate, journalist, public figure, former military serviceman, and former prisoner of war. He is a co-founder of Hromadske Radio and the ZMINA Human Rights Centre, was a board member of the Ukrainian branch of Amnesty International. From the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion, he joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In June 2022, was taken prisoner. In occupied Luhansk, the so-called ‘LPR’ court sentenced Butkevych to thirteen years in a high-security penal colony as a ‘war criminal’ in a fabricated case. After two years and four months of imprisonment, he was released from captivity. He returned to Ukraine as part of an exchange on 18 October 2024. Butkevych has received numerous awards for his human rights work, including the Czech Stories of Injustice Award (2022), the Anne Frank Special Recognition Award for Human Dignity and Tolerance (2023), the National Human Rights Award (2023), and the Order “For Courage,” III class (2025). In September 2025 he was awarded the prestigious Václav Havel Human Rights Prize for his contributions to human rights and resilience in Ukraine. |
Emily Channell-Justice Director, Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University Emily Channell-Justice is Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University. She is a sociocultural anthropologist who has conducted research in Ukraine since 2012, focusing on political activism, self-organization, and social change. Her book Without the State: Self-Organization and Political Activism (University of Toronto Press, 2022) won the 2023 American Association of Ukrainian Studies Book Prize. She is also the editor of Decolonizing Queer Experience: LGBT+ Narratives from Eastern Europe and Eurasia (Lexington Books, 2020). Her research has been published in journals including Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Feminist Anthropology, Revolutionary Russia, History and Anthropology, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Channell-Justice was a Visiting Fellow at the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki in spring 2024 and served as a Scholar in Residence at the Institute for Documentation and Exchange (INDEX) in Lviv in October 2025. She received her PhD from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and previously held a Havighurst Fellowship and Visiting Assistant Professorship in International Studies at Miami University. |
Rory Finnin Professor of Ukrainian Studies, University of Cambridge; Visiting Professor of Ukrainian Studies, Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame Rory Finnin is Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge. He founded the Cambridge Ukrainian Studies programme in 2008 and has played a leading role in advancing Ukrainian studies in the UK and internationally. His research examines the relationship between culture and identity in Ukraine, with particular attention to colonialism in Crimea and Crimean Tatar literature and culture. His broader scholarly interests include nationalism, solidarity, and cultural memory in the Black Sea region. Finnin is the author of Blood of Others: Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (2022), which received the Omeljan Pritsak Book Prize in Ukrainian Studies. |
Nataliya Gumenyuk CEO, Public Interest Journalism Lab Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist and author specializing in conflict reporting and human rights. She is the founder and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Lab (PIJL), which promotes constructive public discussion around complex social and political issues. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, PIJL co-founded The Reckoning Project, an initiative dedicated to documenting war crimes. As a foreign news correspondent, Gumenyuk has reported from more than 50 countries. Her writing regularly appears in Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, and The Atlantic. She is the author of several books and documentaries, including The Lost Island: Tales from the Occupied Crimea (2020) and The Maidan Tahrir (2015), as well as co-author of The Scariest Days of My Life: The Dispatches of The Reckoning Project (2023). Gumenyuk is also the co-founder and former editor-in-chief of independent Ukrainian media outlets Hromadske TV and Hromadske International, where she currently serves as a board member. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ngumenyuk |
Melinda Haring Senior Advisor, Razom for Ukraine; Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council Melinda Haring is an expert on Ukraine and a nonprofit leader with extensive experience in policy advocacy and civil society development. She serves as Senior Advisor at Razom for Ukraine and as a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Previously, she was Deputy Director of the Eurasia Center and editor of the Council’s UkraineAlert blog. After teaching English in Ukraine for nearly two years, Haring has devoted her career to understanding, appreciating and supporting reform voices in Ukraine. At Razom for Ukraine, Haring built and directs Razom’s Advocacy Advisory Board, oversees major gifts, and builds coalitions and partnerships across the organization. Haring is also a trusted voice on Ukraine. As a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, Haring provides regular commentary on television, radio and in print. Haring has previously worked for the Superhumans Center, Eurasia Foundation, Freedom House, Institute for Justice, and the National Democratic Institute. A graduate of Georgetown University, she holds an MA in government with a certificate in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies. Haring is also the chair of the board of the East Europe Foundation in Kyiv and Promprylad.Renovation in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. X: @melindaharing |
Yevhen Hlibovytsky Founder and Head, Frontier Institute; Professor of Practice, Ukrainian Catholic University Yevhen Hlibovytsky is the founder and head of the Frontier Institute, a Kyiv-based non-partisan think tank focused on social transformation in Ukraine and the wider region. The Institute develops interdisciplinary and intersectoral programs on demography, human security and resilience, and institutional transformation. Hlibovytsky has been a member of the Nestor Group and previously worked extensively in Central Asia and the Caucasus as an expert for the OSCE between 2006 and 2014. He is a member of the Supervisory Board of Ukraine’s public service broadcaster Suspilne and serves on the advisory board of Razom Advocacy in Washington, DC. Before 2006, Hlibovytsky was a prominent broadcast journalist and anti-censorship activist. He currently teaches as Professor of Practice at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Facebook: facebook.com/yevhen.hlibovytsky |
Sergio Jaramillo Caro President, Acordemos Foundation; Former High Commissioner for Peace of Colombia Sergio Jaramillo Caro served as High Commissioner for Peace of Colombia from 2012 to 2017 under President Juan Manuel Santos, whose administration received the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize. In this role, he played a central part in negotiating and implementing the peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), helping to bring an end to one of the world’s longest-running armed conflicts. Previously, Jaramillo served as Colombia’s National Security Advisor (2010–2012), where he designed the National Territorial Consolidation Policy and led the secret negotiations in Havana that resulted in the 2012 General Agreement with the FARC. Alongside Humberto de la Calle, he later led four years of public negotiations, culminating in the 2016 peace accord. As Peace Commissioner, he also oversaw the disarmament and demobilization of the FARC, completed under UN verification in 2017. Earlier in his career, Jaramillo served as Vice Minister of Defence for Policy and International Affairs, Executive Director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), and as a diplomatic advisor within Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and embassy in France. He was Colombian Ambassador to the European Union and Belgium from 2017 to 2018. He holds an MPhil in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge and has studied at the Universities of Toronto, Oxford, and Heidelberg. He currently advises peace negotiations internationally and leads the Latin American solidarity campaign ¡Aguanta Ucrania! supporting Ukraine. |
Sean Kivlehan Faculty Member, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative Sean Kivlehan, MD, MPH, is a faculty member in the Emergency Health Systems Program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He is also an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His work focuses on strengthening the quality and accessibility of emergency care systems, particularly in conflict-affected and hard-to-reach settings. Through the Emergency Health Systems Program, Kivlehan partners with organizations around the world to support health system resilience and improve emergency care delivery in humanitarian contexts. X: @Sean_Kivlehan |
Neringa Klumbytė Professor of Anthropology and East European Studies, Miami University; Senior Research Associate, Lithuanian Institute of History Neringa Klumbytė is Professor of Anthropology and East European Studies and Director of the Lithuania Program at the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami University. She is also a Senior Research Associate at the Lithuanian Institute of History. Her research examines authoritarianism, political violence, occupation, memory and trauma, human rights, and the geopolitics of (in)security in the 20th and 21st centuries. She is the author of Authoritarian Laughter: Political Humor and Soviet Dystopia in Lithuania (Cornell University Press, 2022), winner of the BASEES Women’s Forum Prize. Klumbytė’s work also spans political satire, propaganda, consumption, and historical justice. She has been recognized with the Miami University College of Arts and Science Distinguished Educator Award. Website: neringaklumbyte.com |
Emma Mateo Mihaychuk Postdoctoral Fellow, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University Dr. Emma Mateo is a social scientist specializing in protest, civil society, and political behavior in Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Ukraine and Belarus. Her postdoctoral research at Harvard examines civilian responses to Russia’s full-scale invasion, building on her doctoral work at the University of Oxford on subnational mobilization and repression during mass protests. Her scholarship has appeared in Post-Soviet Affairs and Social Media + Society, and she has presented her work at major academic conferences and expert workshops across Europe and North America. Mateo previously held postdoctoral positions at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute (as a Petro Jacyk Fellow) and New York University’s Jordan Center, and she has taught at Columbia University and the Kyiv School of Economics. She holds a PhD in Sociology and an MPhil in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Cambridge. Originally from the UK, she speaks Ukrainian, French, and Russian. X: @emm_mateo; Bluesky: @emmamateo.bsky.social |
Oksana Mikheieva Professor of Sociology, Kyiv School of Economics; VUIAS Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Prof. Dr. Oksana Mikheieva is a sociologist specializing in migration during wartime, displacement, paramilitary motivations, and everyday life under conditions of war and occupation. She is Professor of Sociology at the Kyiv School of Economics and a VUIAS Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Mikheieva has held academic positions at Donetsk State University of Management, the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, and European University Viadrina, and she has conducted research as a fellow at Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI), the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), and ZOiS in Berlin. Her work examines the social transformations produced by war and forced migration within Ukraine and across borders. Website: https://www.wiko-berlin.de/fellows/akademisches-jahr/2025/mikheieva-oks… |
Nate Mook CEO, All Hands & Hearts Nate Mook is a humanitarian leader, advisor, and storyteller with extensive experience in disaster response, advocacy, and global civil society. He is the CEO of All Hands & Hearts, a disaster relief nonprofit co-founded by Petra Němcová. From 2018 to 2022, Mook served as the first CEO of World Central Kitchen, leading its growth from a small organization into a global humanitarian operation raising over $500 million annually. Following this role, he spent two years as Special Advisor on Ukraine for the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. In recognition of his contributions to Ukraine, he was awarded the Order of Merit by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mook is a co-founder of the Hachiko Foundation, which supports animals affected by war in frontline Ukrainian communities. He serves on the boards of March For Our Lives and Save Ukraine, and advises Razom for Ukraine on advocacy efforts. Earlier in his career, he worked in technology and film, producing award-winning documentaries including Baltimore Rising (HBO) and serving as executive producer of the Emmy-nominated We Feed People (2022). He has also been a longtime collaborator with TED, supporting the growth of the TEDx program and organizing conferences in challenging global contexts. |
Sarah D. Phillips Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University Sarah D. Phillips is Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, where she also teaches in the Human Biology Program. She has conducted research in Ukraine since 1995, focusing on the intersections of gender, health, disability, civic organizing, and care. She is the author of Women’s Social Activism in the New Ukraine: Development and the Politics of Differentiation (2008) and Disability and Mobile Citizenship in Postsocialist Ukraine (2011), both published by Indiana University Press. Her current research examines the experiences of Ukrainians with disabilities who fled Russian aggression and are now living in EU countries, particularly Poland, Romania, and the Netherlands. Phillips is also the author of Kurt Vonnegut in the USSR (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026), a study of Cold War–era literary diplomacy centered on Vonnegut and his Soviet translator Rita Rait-Kovaleva. The book includes a strong Ukrainian dimension, exploring Vonnegut’s popularity in Soviet Ukraine and reflecting on his continued relevance in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. |
Ivan Shmatko Assistant Professor of Sociology, Washington and Lee University Ivan Shmatko is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Washington and Lee University. His research and teaching span the sociology of law, military ethnography, and the ethnography of post-socialism, with a particular focus on Ukraine. He earned his PhD in Sociology from the University of Alberta, where his doctoral research examined organizational and cultural change within the Ukrainian Armed Forces following Russia’s full-scale invasion and the subsequent mass mobilization. His earlier work includes extensive research on policing in Ukraine, with publications in The British Journal of Criminology and Medical Anthropology Quarterly. In the aftermath of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Shmatko was actively involved in Ukraine’s volunteer movement, supporting territorial defense personnel and civilians through the provision of protective equipment and medical supplies. He has also served as a mentor at the Invisible University for Ukraine and conducted research in collaboration with the Ukrainian Veteran Human Rights Organization “Pryntsyp.” |
Yevhen Shybalov Journalist; Veteran of Ukraine’s Armed Forces; Expert in Security, Humanitarian Action, and Veteran Policy Yevhen Shybalov is a journalist, humanitarian expert, and veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war. For more than eight years, he worked as a Donetsk-based correspondent for Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, before transitioning in 2015 to humanitarian and peacebuilding work in eastern Ukraine with organizations including the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Shybalov volunteered for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, serving as a grenadier in combat operations in the Kyiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. Captured in May 2022, he spent seven months in Russian captivity before returning to service as a UAV operator. Demobilized in 2023, he later headed the European Integration Department at the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, aligning Ukraine’s veteran policy with EU and NATO standards. Today, Yevhen works as an independent consultant on security, humanitarian action, and veteran policy. In 2015, Shybalov received the Honor of the Profession journalism award (2015) and in 2024 he received the For Invincibility medal (2024). |
Alisa Sopova PhD Candidate in Anthropology, Princeton University Alisa Sopova is an anthropologist and journalist whose work examines civilian experiences of war and the material and emotional realities of everyday life under military violence. Born and raised in Donetsk, she has been documenting Russia’s war against Ukraine since 2014. Sopova was the first Ukrainian Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and later completed an MA in Regional Studies at Harvard before pursuing her PhD in Anthropology at Princeton. Her reporting has appeared in TIME, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New Humanitarian, and NPR. In 2024, she was named a National Geographic Explorer. Together with photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind, Sopova co-founded the multimedia storytelling project 5K from the Frontline, which documents civilian life adjacent to frontlines. Instagram: @sopova.alisa |
Oleksandra Tarkhanova SNSF Ambizione Fellow; University of Neuchâtel Dr. Oleksandra Tarkhanova is a sociologist specializing in qualitative and ethnographic research on citizenship, displacement, and gender relations in Ukraine. She leads the SNSF-funded project Radical Reconfiguration of State–Citizen Relations in Ukraine and is an associate researcher with the NCCR-on-the-move project at the University of Neuchâtel, Dealing with Crises and Liminal Situations: The Agency of Ukrainian and Syrian Forced Migrants in Three National Contexts. Tarkhanova earned her PhD in Sociology from Bielefeld University, an MA in Gender Studies from Lund University, and a BA from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Her book Compulsory Motherhood, Paternalistic State? was published by Palgrave in 2021. Her broader research explores migrant agency, liminality, and social transformation in contexts of crisis and displacement. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/oleksandra-tarkhanova-75b6103b/ |
Roman Waschuk Business Ombudsman of Ukraine; Former Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine Roman Waschuk is the Business Ombudsman of Ukraine and a former Canadian diplomat who served as Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. He has held the role of Business Ombudsman since January 2022, working to improve the business climate and strengthen governance in Ukraine during wartime. Waschuk joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1987 and held senior positions in Ottawa across Eastern Europe, EU affairs, policy planning, and stabilization and reconstruction programming, where he managed large-scale international assistance portfolios. Abroad, he served in embassies in Kyiv, Moscow and Berlin, and was appointed Ambassador of Canada to Serbia in 2011, with concurrent accreditation to North Macedonia and Montenegro, before returning to Kyiv in 2014. Trained as a historian, Waschuk holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Central and Eastern European History from the University of Toronto. His published work includes the 2020 TCUP Lecture What the West Got Wrong: Re-examining Western Support for Reforms in Ukraine, 2014–2019. He is fluent or conversant in English, French, Ukrainian, German, Russian, Polish, and Serbian. |