M. SUZANNE MYERS HAROLD (Russian). ...

STEPHANIE HITZTALER (Russian). Stephanie is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) where she's in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. She's doing fieldwork for her disseratation in the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East. Specifically, she's working on an ethnobotany project where she studies how people in rural logging villages in central Kamchatka use non-timber forest resources in the post-Soviet period, and how their activities influence the ecological landscape. She plans to defend at the beginning of 2009 after the completion of her final field season next summer. She has also been serving as acting director (volunteer) for a small, NGO--American Association for the Support of Ecological Initiatives--that facilitates internships for college students at nature reserves in northwest Russia. (She participated in this program in 1996; other Grinnellians have also participated.)

SANDY WILLIAMS '91, a director of AASEI, brought this organization to our department's attention. Stephanie's next employment was as an assistant coordinator for the Taiga Rescue Network in Jakkmokh, Sweden, an organization whose mission is the preservation of the world's boreal forests. Stephanie recently completed a sojourn in Moscow, working as an assistant editor on a journal has devoted to ecological issues in Russia, the Russian Conservation News. She was also elected to the board of AASEI. Stephanie is now building on her impressive foundation in Russian and environmental issues, and will begin studies at the University of Michigan, pursuing a joint Master's degree through the Center for Russian/East European Studies and the School for Natural Resources & Environment.
E-mail: shitztal@umich.edu

BRETT HODGES (Russian [No Degree Awarded]). Aided by a Russian Study Award, Brett traveled twice in the past two years to work in St. Petersburg on a grass-roots civic-education project. Brett completed the M.A. in Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Iowa, and he is now a student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

KARA McCARTY (Russian). Kara recently completed the M.A. in Slavic languages and literatures at the State University of New York at Albany.

ANGELI McKNIGHT (Russian). With the help of a Russian Study Award, Angeli spent the year after graduation in Moscow, where she worked as a volunteer in a hospital supported by the Orthodox Church. Angeli's principal interest is midwifery, and she was able to observe birthing techniques in Russian hospitals. When last heard from, Angeli was traveling throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

ERIN COLLEEN O'FALLON (Russian and Biology). ...