Mariia Kravchenko (Kyiv, Ukraine) is our Visiting Short-Term Fellow for June 2023
Mariia Kravchenko is a historian and a specialist in international educational cooperation. She earned her Ph.D. (Candidate of Sciences, 2021) in history from the Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Ukraine, focusing her thesis on the Social Policy of the FDR and Harry Truman Administrations. Currently, she is a program officer at the Fulbright Ukraine & Institute of International Education Kyiv office.
Mariia has a broad background in American Studies. She has participated in various conferences and seminars, authored 18 publications, and taught under the mentorship of the contemporary history department at Taras Shevchenko University. Her professional journey in American Studies saw her starting to work with the Kennan Institute Kyiv office in 2017 and joining the Fulbright Ukraine team later the same year.
Recently, Mariia’s work has mainly involved various educational and cultural projects to strengthen support and understanding of Ukraine abroad, especially in the ongoing full-scale Russian war against Ukraine. She teamed with her Fulbright Ukraine colleagues to open a traveling photo exhibition, ‘Ukraine: War and Resistance,’ showcased in Ukraine, Germany, and the US, while also working to keep the Fulbright Program opportunities open for Ukrainians. At the same time, Mariia continued her scholarly pursuits, contributing articles to the American History & Politics journal, participating in the Ukrainian Association for American Studies and becoming part of the new professional community of Ukrainian historians known as Litopys Nezlamnosti (Chronicle of Invincibility).
The Roosevelt Institute for American Studies invited Mariia Kravchenko as a Short-Term Fellow last year. Finally, in June 2023, she managed to organize her long journey from Kyiv to Middelburg and will be working at the RIAS until the end of this month. She plans to deepen her research thanks to the availability of a vast collection of relevant published works and primary sources at the RIAS and to gather all necessary materials for finishing her book about the FDR-Truman Years and Its Social Legacy (in Ukrainian). Mariia also looks forward to networking and enjoying her first international exchange experience as a scholar. On June 22, she will participate in the Amerikanistendag in Nijmegen, discussing the peculiarities of American Studies during wartime based on her and her Ukrainian colleagues’ experiences.
When not at RIAS, you might find Mariia somewhere in the city center, soaking up its beauty and tranquility with her mother and her nearly three-year-old daughter, most likely with a gelato in hand.