Executive Committee

President
Associate Professor Natalia Chaban

A native of Ukraine, Dr. Natalia Chaban earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics in 1997 (focus on political and media discourse analysis). She has held research and teaching positions at Cherkasy State University (Ukraine), Lund University (Sweden), and at the University of Maryland at College Park (USA). Her interdisciplinary expertise has been engaged in designing cross-cultural learning activities for the US Peace Corps, Ukraine.

Dr. Natalia Chaban joined the NCRE in March 2002. At present she is Deputy Director at the Centre. In addition to her position at the NCRE, she is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre for Study of European Politics and Society, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva, Israel.

Natalia is actively pursuing her research interests in the fields of cognitive and semiotic aspects of political and mass media discourses, image studies and EU Identity outside the EU. She is currently directing a multi-national research project “The EU in the Eyes of Asia Pacific” which involves 20 locations in Asia-Pacific since 2004 and is widely published on this subject (including three co-authored books and numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals). Natalia is also a co-leader of a ‘mirror’ perceptions project – “Asia in the Eyes of Europe”. Her other research interests include studies of primary and return migration to and from the EU in cross-cultural and public diplomacy contexts and independent Ukraine as a new fledgling democracy in Europe. Natalia is a co-editor of a newly established peer-reviewed journal “Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies”.

Natalia teaches at both under-graduate and post-graduate level and supervises Honours, Masters and PhD students. In 2006, she was awarded a University of Canterbury Teaching Award. She has significant experience in analysing EU Identity outside the EU, markedly advancing methodological training in this regard. She has designed and facilitated 30 extensive research workshops in various locations training international researchers (both young and experienced, from Asia-Pacific and Europe). As a Member of the NCRE Internal Advisory Board (since 2002) and NZ EU Centers Network Advisory Board (since 2005), Natalia contributes to the development of the EU Studies in New Zealand.

First Vice President
Dr Alessandro Achilli

Alessandro Achilli is Senior assistant professor in Slavic Studies at the University of Cagliari, Italy. He’s the author of the first monograph on Vasyl’ Stus published outside of Ukraine (La lirica di Vasyl’ Stus: Modernismo e intertestualità poetica nell’Ucraina del secondo Novecento, Florence: Firenze University Press, 2018) and of several articles and chapters on modern and contemporary Ukrainian, Russian and comparative literature, with special attention to poetry. Together with Serhy Yekelchyk and Dmytro Yesypenko, he has edited Cossacks in Jamaica, Ukraine at the Antipodes: Essays in Honor of Marko Pavlyshyn (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2020).

From 2017 to 2020 he was Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies at Monash University, where he directed the Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies (2019-2020). He’s currently Vice President of the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand. He’s also a member of the executive board of the Italian Association of Ukrainian Studies (AISU). In 2015 he was a visiting fellow at Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University.

Contact details:

Email: alessandro.achilli@monash.edu

Secretary-Treasurer
Andrew Radion
BEng (Hons), BA (Monash 2011)

Andrew Radion is a civil engineer but also an alumnus of the Ukrainian Studies program at Monash University. He is active in the Ukrainian Community in Melbourne.

Contact details:

Secretary@UkrainianStudies.asn.au

Member of the Committee
Emeritus Professor Marko Pavlyshyn

Marko Pavlyshyn is Emeritus Professor of Ukrainian Studies at Monash University.

He is the author of Ol’ha Kobylianska: Interpretations (Kharkiv, 2008), Canon and Iconostasis (Kyiv, 1997), both in Ukrainian, of translations from the Ukrainian into English of Yuri Andrukhovych’s Recreations (Edmonton, 1998) and Yuri Izdryk’s Wozzeck (Edmonton, 2006), and of more than 100 chapters in books and articles in scholarly journals, mainly on modern and contemporary Ukrainian literature and post-colonial approaches to its analysis. He co-edited, with Giovanna Brogi and Serhii Plokhy, the collection Ukraine and Europe: Cultural Encounters and Negotiations (Toronto, 2017).  He was the Australian editor of Volume 4 (Australia, Asia and Africa) of the Encyclopaedia of the Ukrainian Diaspora (Kyiv, 1995) and chaired the editorial board of Ukrainians in Australia, Vol. 2 (Melbourne, 1998). He edited two volumes of proceedings (1986 and 1993) of the Shevchenko Scientific Society’s conference series “Ukrainian Settlement in Australia” and co-edited, with Jonathan Clarke, the proceedings of the 1990 and 1995 conferences of the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia.

In 2004-2018 Marko Pavlyshyn was the director of the Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies at Monash University, in 2000-2005 and 2014-2017 director of Monash University’s Centre for European Studies and, in 2005-2010, head of that university’s School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics. He was the founding president of the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia (1990-1998), its vice-president (1998-2013), and a member of the committee of the International Association for Ukrainian Studies (1990-1998). In 1998-2003 he was President of the Australia and New Zealand Slavists’ Association and has been, since 1998, President of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Australia.

Marko Pavlyshyn is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and an International Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Contact details:

Emeritus Professor Marko Pavlyshyn
School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics
20 Chancellors Walk
Monash University VIC 3800
Australia

Email: Marko.Pavlyshyn@monash.edu