Celeste Belknap (2019) graduated with a double major in Russian and Violin Performance and a minor in Psychology. Currently, she is an M.A. student at Penn State’s School of Music.
Dr. David Cooper received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Jason Cornelius (2018) graduated with a major in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Russian. Currently, he is continuing his studies in Aerospace Engineering and Russian as a Ph.D. at Penn State.
Joe Embler (1983) graduated with a B.A. in Russian. In 1983-2002, he served honorably in the Marine Corps. Upon his retirement, he worked at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Garmisch, Germany, and now he works at the Defense Language Institute as a program manager in the Afghanistan-Pakistan ‘Hands’ Program, coordinating distance learning initiatives.
Andrew Fronheiser (2019) studied Russian at Penn State as an Air Force ROTC student. Upon graduation, he was commission by the Air Force and is currently training to be an Intel Officer in the United States Air Force in San Angelo, Texas.
Sarah Harpending (1993) is a Partnerships and Grants Officer at Collateral Repair Project in Amman, Jordan.
Vance Holthenrichs (2018) double majored in Russian and German. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Slavic Linguistics at the University of Indiana Bloomington.
Oksana Husieva is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kansas.
Dr. Roman Ivashkiv received his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta and is currently a lecturer in Slavic languages and literatures and language program coordinator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Nicholas Karakos (2006) received a degree from the the law school at PSU and is now a Director of Shared Services Bellevue, WA.
Daniel Keifer (2017) graduated with a major in Russian and spent a year in Bulgaria on a Fulbright. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in History at the Georgetown University. His thesis project focuses on labor relations within the energy industries of the Former Soviet Union.
Emily Kohlman (2018) was a Paterno Fellow and a Schreyer Honors Scholar and graduated with a double major in Journalism and Russian. Upon graduation, she spent a year in Czech Republic on a Fulbright teaching English.
Oksana Lushchevska received her Ph.D. at the University of Georgia Oksana Husieva is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kansas.
Tammy Marpoe (1995) went to Temple University Law School after PSU and is currently an Insurance Coordinator at The Ophthalmology and Surgical Institute of Central Pennsylvania.
Stuart McLaughlin (2017) double majored in Russian and Spanish. After graduation, he spent a year in Azerbaijan on a Fulbright. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Slavic and Central Asian Studies at Stanford University. His thesis deals with the modern-day political influence of the newly independent Turkic states and how the concept of identity connected to native languages and educational policy changes.
Joseph Nakpil (2015) graduated with a double major in Comparative Literature and Russian. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD at The University of Southern California in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.
Jennifer Neumyer (1993) was a director of public library in MD Dr.
Natalia Nigay (2018) graduated with a double major in Russian and Aerospace Engineering. Currently, she is pursuing an M.A. degree in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State.
Maureen Gramaglia Passey (2001) is a Primary Patent Examiner at USPTO Seattle, WA.
Jeffrey Daniel Pawola (2013) is Client Solutions Manager.
Dr. Mykola Polyuha received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario and is an Associate Professor at Bloomsburg State University.
Erika Pugh (2019) graduated as a Paterno Fellow and a Schreyer Honors Scholar with degrees in Finance and Russian. Currently, she is an Analyst in the Investment Professionals Division of BDT & Company / BDT Capital Partners, based in Chicago, IL.
Dr. Madhury Ray (2004) has received a Fulbright and participated in the Orange Revolution in Kyiv upon graduating from PSU. After that, she received a doctorate in medicine and worked as an emergency room surgeon at UCLA hospital. Recently she also received a degree in health/hospital administration from Harvard and is now Senior Analyst at NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Angelique Reynolds (2004) is a TOEFL instructor last at the University of Indiana.
Kristina Shigaeva (2012) has received an MA at Emerson College and is now working as an Account Executive at Civilian in San Diego.
Charlie Smith is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Russian modernist and post-modernist literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago, after having graduated from Penn State with a double major in both English literature and Russian language and literature. His primary area of interest involves writers such as Yuri Olesha, Daniil Kharms, and Vladimir Mayakovsky, as well as later Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian authors, including Venedikt Yerofeev and Viktor Pelevin. He is also interested in the Acmeist movement in Russian Silver-Age poetry, and specifically in the works of Nikolai Gumilev.
Alexander Sukhovatitsyn (2008) is the director of social security office in State College.
Christopher Summa (1993) is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of New Orleans.
Oksana Tatsyak is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Olha Tytarenko received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and is now an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Nebraska.
Dr. Olesia Wallo received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas.
Dr. Sophie Wisniewski (1974) is a retired university president and administrator.
Ana Alicia Wondoloski (2011) is a Senior Grants Officer National Endowment for Democracy.
Brian Zdancevicz (2017) double majored in Russian and Linguistics and was our GSLL Marshal. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Slavic Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
James Zevchak (1996) is a nuclear power plant inspector.
Alina is an MA recipient in the Russian and Comparative Literature program. She is working in diaspora studies with a focus on contemporary writers of the Ukrainian diaspora in the US. Besides, she is interested in media studies and creative intersections of literature and other mediums: mass media, oral tradition, and social media platforms.
Academic interests: migration and diaspora literature, Ukrainian literature, literary translation, second language acquisition.