Nini Sikharulidze, a native of Tbilisi, Georgia, is a member of the Harvard College Class of 2025 with a bachelor of arts in human developmental and regenerative biology, a secondary concentration in government, and a language citation in French.
At Harvard, Nini co-founded the Harvard College Georgian Student Association to promote Georgian culture on campus and served as a student researcher with the Davis Center's Program on Georgian Studies, focusing on the history of the Georgian diaspora in the United States. As an Alex Booth '30 fellow, she earned the opportunity to further her research on the Georgian diaspora in France, with particular emphasis on the historic community of Leuville-sur-Orge.
In addition to her work on diaspora studies, Nini defended an independent research project titled "Russia’s Renewed Imperialism in Georgia: Borderization and 'Creeping Occupation' at the Administrative Boundary Lines." She presented this work at the Davis Center's Undergraduate Colloquium on Russian and Eurasian Studies in 2024 and at the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Northeast Network (REEESNe) Conference at Yale University in 2025. The paper was subsequently recognized as a finalist for Yale's James Billington Award. Another essay of Nini's, “Navigating the Complex Geopolitical Landscape Post Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Contemporary Geopolitical Shifts and the Utilization of Historical Trade Routes Connecting the Caspian to the Black Sea,” won the Marina Ledkovsky Prize for short-form writing, also awarded by Yale’s European Studies Council.
Nini is continuing her academic journey through postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford.
