Aruzhan Meirkhanova earned her master's degree from the Davis Center's REECA program in 2023. She holds an undergraduate degree in political science and international relations from Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. Her research at Harvard focused on continuity and change in authoritarian regimes in a comparative perspective. While at the Davis Center, she worked as a student associate for the Russia Matters project at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center and was also an innovation fellow for the Program on Central Asia (2022-2023), where she focused on the governance of a renewable energy transition in the region.