last updated: January 2023

I am a computational political scientist and data scientist. I am currently a Research Officer at European Institute and a final year PhD Candidate at the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).  In my work, I try to embrace Text-as-Data and other Data-Science-based approaches to social sciences. Currently, my academic focus is primarily on Comparative Political Science, International Relations, and Media Studies, even though I am also (due to my background) quite interested in economics and finance.

My PhD dissertation is an attempt to answer the question "What do news media in Putin’s Russia reveal about the regime’s survival strategy?" At European Institute (LSE, JUSTINT), I work on data-science-based approaches to Transitional Justice in the Balkans.  Specifically, I am responsible for Text as Data, web scraping, statistical analysis, as well as broader research design. 

Additionally, I freelance doing RAs. These are usually Data-Science or Text-as-Data projects. In 2021/2022, I work(ed) as a part-time RA  for Katerina Tertychnaya (Oxford) and Tomila Lankina (LSE). Previously, I worked in similar roles for various projects at Warwick, SOAS, Waseda, LSE, and Princeton.  

From 2022, I am also assisting Dominique Lieven (Cambridge | LSE) with the Paulsen Programme which provides support to young scholars who lack the financial opportunity to travel outside Russia. I have also contributed to developing Marimo in R and Quanteda tutorials and  spent spring 2019 as a visiting researcher at Waseda University, Japan.

I hold MSc in Political Science and Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and MSc in Economics from Warwick University. I spent a year as at Central University in Beijing as an exchange student during my BSc studies. My BSc is in Mathematical Economics. 

Before returning to academia to do my MSc, I spent more than 4 years working with people and data in one of the Big Four international financial consultancies. My work was focused on people and enterprises in Russia and Ukraine. 

I speak fluent English, Russian, and not-that-fluent Mandarin (HSK 4). I also understand/read in Ukrainian and Tatar as these are my native languages. 

If you are interested in hiring me in the UK, you would not need to sponsor a work permit as I have been recognised as Global Talent by the British Academy.

Reviewer: Journal of Refugee Studies; Nationalities Papers.

Teaching assistant roles

2020-2021

MY470 Computer Programming (LSE)

IR100 International Relations: Theories, Concepts and Debates (LSE)

MSc in International Relations dissertation surgeries (LSE)

2019-2020

IR100 International Relations: Theories, Concepts and Debates (LSE)

MY464 Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Media and Communications (LSE)

Quantitative methodology surgeries (LSE)

MSc in International Relations dissertation surgeries (LSE)

3B Quantitative Text Analysis at Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis (University of Essex)

Workshop in computational text analysis (LSE)

Selected methodology training

MY470 Computer Programming (Python and R), LSE

MY459 Quantitative Text Analysis, LSE

MY457 Causal Inference for Observational and Experimental Studies, LSE

MY452 Applied Regression Analysis, LSE

IR509 Research Design, LSE

Quantitative Text Analysis, Essex Summer School, UK

Advanced Machine Learning for Social Scientists, Essex Summer School

Quantitative Text Analysis for Political Science, Waseda University, Japan

Programming:

TensorFlow: Qwik Start | Qwiklabs

Coursera: NLP Specialisation (NLTK, Vector spaces)

Udemy: Hands On Natural Language Processing (NLP) using Python

Udemy: Python Beyond the Basics - Object-Oriented Programming

Coursera: Applied Data Science with Python (University of Michigan) (APIs, web scraping, SQLite, basic NLP and ML)

Grants

Postgraduate

SICSS: 800 GBP to fund AWS services (2021-2022)

The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation: 1000 GBP to support a research collaboration (2019)

Waseda University (早稲田大学), Japan: 1500 GBP to support a research collaboration in Text as Data methods at Waseda, Tokyo (2019)

LSE, full studentship and scholarship for the PhD (2018-2022)

Undergraduate

Central University of Finance and Economics, China (中央财经大学) full studentship and scholarship for 9 months language exchange programme in Beijing

Full studentship and scholarship for BSc in Mathematical Economics

Selected presentations and invited talks

APSA 2021. Panel “Political Affairs through the Lens of Russian Media” (panel organiser and speaker)

Connected_Politics Lab Seminar Series. University College Dublin. Oct 2021. "What do mass media in Russia reveal about the regime’s survival strategy?"

LSE. Oct 2021. "Talking about justice and building peace after mass atrocity"

LSE. Dec 2021. Data Science Institute Research Showcase

selected conferences and workshops where I presented parts of my dissertation:

ISA 2021, EPSA 2021, BISA 2021, ASN 2021, NESEEES 2021 (NYU), IC2S2 (MIT) 2020, VWAR 2020, Zurich Text as Data (Zurich ETH and UZH) 2019