Andrey Shlyakhter is an international historian of the Soviet Union and its neighbors. His research explores the interaction of economics, security, ethnicity, and ideology at state frontiers. Dr. Shlyakhter received his Ph.D. in December 2020 from the Department of History of the University of Chicago with the comparative dissertation, “Smuggler States: Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Contraband Trade Across the Soviet Frontier, 1919-1924,” which was honored with a 2021 Ab Imperio Annual Award and was a finalist for the 2022 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History. The dissertation informs his postdoctoral book project, Smuggled Goods, Soviet Borders: Contraband Trade and the Making of the Soviet System, 1917-1930. Dr. Shlyakhter has held fellowships at the University of Toronto, Tel Aviv University, UIUC, the Kennan Institute (twice), and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research; his scholarship has also been supported by the SSRC, the Fulbright-Hays Program, IREX, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Business History Conference, and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. In September 2024, Dr. Shlyakhter will join the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto, as a Petro Jacyk Post-Doctoral Fellow in Ukrainian Politics, Culture, and Society.