Olena Nikolayenko

Olena Nikolayenko is Professor of Political Science at Fordham University based in New York City, USA. Originally from Ukraine, she received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto and held a SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law before joining Fordham. Her research interests include comparative democratization, social movements, political behavior, women’s activism, and youth, with a regional focus on Eastern Europe. She is the author of two books, Citizens in the Making in Post-Soviet States (Routledge, 2011) and Youth Movements and Elections in Eastern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Her current book project examines women’s participation in the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Her research was supported by the American Councils for International Education (Title VIII Research Scholar Program), American Political Science Association, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and Open Society Institute. Most recently, Dr. Nikolayenko was a visiting scholar at the European Humanities University in Vilnius, Lithuania and the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. At the Center, she will investigate the role of trade unions in advancing political change in a repressive political regime, focusing on the case of Belarus under Alyaksandr Lukashenka.