Meet the Team
Researchers
Marya Rozanova-Smith
Principal Investigator
Dr. Marya Rozanova-Smith, Ph.D., is a Research Professor at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. In addition to her work in academia, she participated in a wide range of social projects. She was the founder and chairperson of the Center for Civil, Social, Scientific, and Cultural Initiatives “STRATEGIA” and served as a Galina Starovoitova Fellow for Conflict Resolution at the Kennan Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Rozanova-Smith has taught the Arctic Affairs course at the Elliott School of International Affairs since 2018.
Her current research interests include Arctic governance; environmental change and community adaptation in the Arctic; migration and integration policy; vulnerability and resilience in
Arctic communities. Dr. Rozanova-Smith is a Principal Investigator of the project “Understanding the Gendered Impacts of COVID-19 in the Arctic (COVID-GEA)” supported by NSF.
Andrey N. Petrov
Dr. Andrey N. Petrov is Professor of Geography and Academic Director of GeoTREE Center at the University of Northern Iowa. Dr. Petrov is an economic and social geographer who specializes in Arctic economy, regional development and post-Soviet society, with an emphasis on the social geography of Indigenous populations.
His current research concerns sustainable development, spatial organization, and restructuring of peripheral economies, as well as dynamics of social-ecological systems. Dr. Petrov leads the Research Coordination Networks in Arctic Sustainability (Arctic-FROST) and Arctic Coastal Resilience (Arctic-COAST). He has published on issues pertaining to socio-economic crisis, development, and demographic dynamics of Arctic populations.
Varvara Korkina Williams
Varvara Korkina Williams, a Kumandin Indigenous scholar, working with Indigenous entrepreneurship, cultural economy and sustainable development. She is a project coordinator at the University of Northern Iowa. Varvara is an Indigenous youth and human rights activist with interests in dynamics of Indigenous cultures and community well-being, and cultural economy.
Varvara's research has looked at cultural economy through a solution-oriented approach, especially for women. Her research results were successfully implemented by a young female entrepreneur, in the Altai republic. This was a local business who hired victims of domestic violence, older women from remote villages or vulnerable young girls without higher education, to produce locally sourced products.
Research Assistants
Alicia Glassman
Alicia Glassman is an undergraduate student at The George Washington University majoring in Geography and Political Science with a minor in GIS. She works as a research assistant on the UGEEA and COVID-GEA projects, focusing on graphic design and cartography. She hopes to use the skills gained through this work to continue studying and working in GIS after graduation. Hailing from the great state of Minnesota, Alicia enjoys word games, working with her university’s food bank, and trying to find the best coffee place in the DMV.
Anissa Ozbek
Anissa Ozbek is a student at The George Washington University, studying International Affairs with a focus in security policy, cross-cultural communication, and Chinese language and culture. Over the past year, Anissa worked as a research assistant with the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics, exploring COVID-19-related misinformation discourse and trends across Russian and American communities. In the coming months, she will begin a project examining the relationship between Arctic governments’ gender composition and their COVID-19-related policy outcomes on local and state levels, studying the cases of Alaska and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.