After Lewis & Clark

We love to hear from our former students of Russian!

We recently heard from some of them and we want to share their stories with you. (If you are one of our alumni and you wish to send us a story or update your old one, please e-mail Tatiana Osipovich: tatiana@lclark.edu.

In chronological order by year of graduation:

Mary I. Dakin'88 (Economics, Russian & East European Studies minor)

MA and PhD, Political Science, Indiana University, with a focus in Soviet and Post-Soviet politics.

Mary worked at the Moscow office of a US law firm, taught at the University of Puget Sound and Indiana University and was Assistant Director at the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University. She is Associate Director of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) and Lecturer in Political Science at Stanford University. http://creees.stanford. edu/CREEEStaff_MD. html

John Pearce '90 (Biology, Russian 4 years)

MS Biology, U Idaho, PhD candidate in Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

In 1989 John participated in the first Lewis & Clark student exchange to Khabarovsk, Portland's sister city in the Russian Far East where he immersed himself in Russian student life, local performing arts, and individual research. In 1990 he was hired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska to act as interpreter for visiting Russian biologists. In the summers of 1993 - 1995 he worked as interpreter and biologist for a joint US-Russian scientific expedition to the Indigirka River Delta on the north coast of the Yakutsk Republic, Russia. This research formed the basis for his Master's thesis and focused on the breeding and migration ecology of the Spectacled Eider (see photo), currently listed as 'threatened' in North America under the Endangered Species Act.

John is now a wildlife biologist at the US Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center in Anchorage. He is pursuing a PhD in Biology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. More about his research can be found at: http://www.absc. usgs.gov/staff/WTEB/ jpearce.php

Susan King '91 (Self-Designed Russian major)

Susan worked in Khabarovsk for three years, then received her Master's in Public Administration at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She was the Associate Director at the Mac Arthur Foundation in Moscow for 5 years. She is now Program Manager for US-RFE Partnership Activity at the Foundation for Russian-American Economic Cooperation in Seattle.

Julie Kuchepatov (nee Ratko) ’91 (Foreign Languages: French & Russian)

Julie worked in the Russian Far East before becoming Director of Russian Operations at the Ponoi River Company for 10 years. She is a freelance Russian interpreter/translator (http://www.russianresource. net) and plans to go to graduate school in communication.

Jason Stanford,'92 (Self-designed Russian Studies major)

Editor, Moscow Guardian (1992). Reporter/Researcher, Los Angeles Times, Moscow bureau (1993). Dept. Press Secretary to Texas Gov. Ann Richards (1994). President, Stanford Campaigns (1997-present)

“If the Communist hardliners had not tried to overthrow Gorbachev in the summer of 1991, I'm sure my life would have turned out much differently. That political turmoil cancelled my LC trip to Russia, which meant that I spent my last semester on campus researching and writing my thesis on the Soviet press under Glasnost. In retrospect, it was this unexpected semester of in-depth study that proved the defining experience in my becoming one of the Democratic Party's top opposition research consultants in the country. My faculty advisors, who included Donna and Tatiana, encouraged me to pursue independent research using primary sources and would not settle for less than original analysis. These standards have proved vital to my vocation.

I spent my final semester studying in Moscow. While fellow graduates competed for bartending jobs in a recession, living in Moscow gave me incredible work experience as the editor of an expatriate magazine and a reporter in the Los Angeles Times' Moscow bureau. It was in Moscow, oddly enough, that I made the professional connections that led me to Texas politics, where I still make my geographic and professional home.

So, to those long departed Commies, thank you, good night and good luck."

Chuck Dunn '92 (Mathematics and Music; Russian 3 years)

MS Mathematics, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994

PhD Mathematics, Arizona State University in Tempe, 2002

"After receiving my Master's I taught high school math and band for three years in Austin, Texas, before going back to graduate school in 1997. In the summer of 2002 I moved back to the Portland area with my partner Scott. I am now an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. And for the first time in 15 years, I have the opportunity to put my study of Russian to good use. I am planning a January 2008 term trip for Linfield math students. We will travel to Switzerland, Germany, and, most significantly, St. Petersburg, Russia. The intent is to follow in the footsteps and to study the mathematics of Leonhard Euler, a very important and prolific 18th-century mathematician."

Dana Margosian '93, (Foreign Languages: German and Russian)

Dana worked for Multnomah County Aging Services interpreting for elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Bloc. After getting an ESL endorsement at Portland State, she served in the Peace Corps teaching English as a Foreign Language in the Jewish Autonomous Region and Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East for 3 years. Upon return to Portland, she worked for Sponsors Organized to Assist Refugees helping new arrivals from Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia. She then began work with the State of Oregon, Department of Human Services (DHS) working specifically with clients with limited English. Dana recently transferred with DHS to Bend, Oregon, where she admi-nisters the Food Stamp and Medicaid programs and enjoys skiing and mountaineering in her spare time.

Darcia McDaniel ’93 (Self-Designed Russian major)

Darcia worked as a receptionist at the American Embassy in Moscow for several years, taught English in Poland, and went back to school to get an MA in Teaching English as a second language.

Brian Humphreys ’94 (Self-Designed Russian major)

Brian worked as a freelance journalist in Russia for 6 years, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle and other publications. In the late 1990's he took a staff writing position with the Moscow Times, and wrote on many of the Russian business and economic developments of the day. He enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 2000 and served in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantry officer. He is now considering a career in academia or policy-making circles that would build on his experiences in Russia and the military.

Seth Gainer ’97 (Foreign Languages: Spanish & Russian)

Seth taught English in St. Petersburg, Russia, worked as a regional coordinator for Bowne Global Solutions and as a legal assistant to 3 attorneys in Washington DC. He plans to go to law school. “Almost ten years after graduation I still use Russian almost every day. It’s made a huge difference in geting to really know and understand people and cultures from Prague to Irkutsk. When I took the Trans-Siberian Railway I made friends with Russians in my compartment!.”

Tracy Chatters (nee Rodda) ’97 (Foreign Languages: Spanish & Russian)

She is married to her fellow Russian classmate Jake Chatters. Tracy taught for five years at Natomas Charter School in Sacramento, California. The couple opened a coffee house recently.

Amy Mendenhall (nee Brose) ’97 (Self-Designed Russian major)

Amy graduated from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in 2004 and she works as an acupuncturist in her own clinic in Sherwood, Oregon.

Carl Schreck '98 (German Studies, Russian minor)

Carl studied Russian for a year in St. Petersburg as an IREX exchange student and worked several years for the European Sports Federation after graduation. He then went to Moscow to study advanced Russian and now works as a reporter for the English language daily, The Moscow Times.

This photo was in his article "Dummy's Guide to Writing about Crime", Sept. 4, 2004.

Read his column “Crime Watch” http://www.themoscowtimes. com/indexes/01.html

Justin Phillips ’98 (Political Science, Russian minor)

Justin received his PhD in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego and now works as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.

Sasha Archibald ‘00 (English, Russian and Gender Studies minors)

Sasha recently wrote that she is an associate editor at Cabinet magazine, a non-profit art and culture quarterly based in Brooklyn, New York. She earned an Advanced Certificate in Museum Studies from New York University and an MA from NYU's John W. Draper Program, an interdisciplinary self-designed humanities program. In 2005, she was named Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Studies Program, where she co-curated a contemporary art exhibition, "At the Mercy of Others: The Politics of Care," accompanied by a catalogue. In addition to frequent articles in Cabinet, she contributed to Histories of the Future (Duke UP: 2005) and a monograph on the work of the conceptual photo-based artist Robert Blanchon (Visual AIDS: 2006); she is the co-editor of the forthcoming Presidential Doodles (Basic Books: 2006).

Robert McCracken ’01 (International Affairs; Russian minor)

Robert worked for AmeriCorps for a few years and is now a graduate student in Public Policy and Urban Planning at the University of California at Berkeley.

Alana Ruprecht (nee Dease) '01 (Foreign Languages: Russian & French)

Alana worked in the Portland Public Schools with Russian and Spanish-speaking children for a year after graduation. She then married and moved to Tarrytown, NY where she is working in a library.

Matthew ("Buzzy") Nelsen, '02 (philosophy major, Russian minor)

After graduating from LC, Buzzy went back to his hometown to work as a librarian. He then got married and moved to Ann Arbor, MI, to pursue dual masters degrees in Information (Library Science) and Public Policy.

Buzzy and his wife continue to reside in Ann Arbor, and he uses his Russian (sadly sporadically) to help patrons at the local public library.

Josh Fjeseth '03 (Economics, Russian minor)

Josh went to St. Petersburg to study Russian. By semester's end he found work at a bank and then at an international law firm where he met his future wife Margarita. Now both are in Denver, Colorado. Josh still continues to work for the same law firm by telecommunication. He plans to apply for a business school in the near future.

Cathrine Magelssen '03 (Sociology, Russian minor)

When I came to LC in 2000, I had lived and worked in Croatia for the last 5 years. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has always been an intriguing area to me, and thus, a minor in Russian was a natural complement to my major in Sociology/Anthropology. My undergraduate studies added both theory and language skills to my passion for CEE and post-communist countries. CEE was also the focus of my graduate work at the University of Toronto where I comp-leted a Master’s in Social-Cultural Anthropology in 2004. I now work with public relations at the “Center for the Study of Professions”, an institute for research and graduate study at Oslo University College in Norway. Although I don’t use Russian in my current job, I am still excited about following Russian politics and culture in addition to travels in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

James Riley '04 (Religious Studies, Russian minor)

After working 2 years, James plans to earn a Master's in History at PSU and go on for a doctorate in History and Religious Studies. He wants to focus his scholarship on Russia and the Middle East and to research Chechnya as the crossroads of Russian and Islamic studies.

Anna Stewart '04 (History, Russian minor)

Anna recently e-mailed us: “After graduating I spent the summer teaching English to Japanese exchange students in Portland. Then I moved to Prague and taught English for 7 months. I always had the goal of going to Russia to put to use the language I started studying at Lewis and Clark. So the following year I taught English in St. Petersburg 4 months. I am currently studying Russian 20 hours a week at Smolny Institute and teaching English to pay the bills. I plan to spend the summer in Kazan or Siberia, and I hope to find an internship that will help me get into graduate school (History or Economics). I am very grateful to the Russian Program at Lewis & Clark for all the encouragement and guidance they provided and I think any student with the interest and motivation will find LC a great place to start discovering Russia.

Nate Jones, '05 (History, Russian minor)

Thanks to his Russian language skills Nate was hired right after graduation by the Service Employees International Union to work with its Russian-speaking members in the Portland Metropolitan area. After that he taught English in Moscow for a year.  Nate finished his masters degree in Russian history at George Washington University and now works at the National Security Archive, Washington DC, where he tries to get secret documents declassified.  He is also applying for a job with the Foreign Service. Nate has presented a paper at a conference in California on a 1983 nuclear scare between the two superpowers. You can read about it at: http://www.wilsoncenter. org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction= topics.item&news_id= 400459

Matthew Price '05 (International Affairs, History & Russian minors)

In addition to his major & minors at Lewis & Clark, Matthew studied Russian in Nizhny Novgorod for one semester and Kazakh in Kazakhstan for two summers. He traveled extensively in the former Soviet Union. A photo narrative of his travels can be seen at http://www.lclark. edu/~russkie/price/ index.htm.

Recalling his time at Lewis & Clark, Matthew said: "Throughout my four years at college, the Russian Section has consistently supported my efforts to develop linguistic and research skills for studying the former Soviet Union. No matter what avenue of study I wanted to pursue, the Russian professors were always encouraging and available to help.

Russian language training has enabled me to travel independently and confidently throughout the region and allowed me to get to know the people and culture of Central Asia on a personal level.

Matthew has been accepted into the graduate program of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University and plans to begin his studies in the fall '08. He looks forward to more adventures traveling throughout the heart of Asia.

Lee Eisenberg '06 (Foreign Languages, Russian and German)

Lee spent a year after his graduation in Yekaterinburg (Russia). He participated in the US-Russia Volunteer Initiative (USRVI), sponsored by IREX. Along with other volunteers, Lee taught schoolchildren about mental disabilities, as well as oversaw sports events between mentally disabled students and non-disabled students. In addition to his work, Lee liked to go to operas, theaters, museums, and more. Lee studied at the Moscow State University on the ACTR full scholarship and returned to the USA in May, 2009.  He is currently a student of Translation and Localization Management in the Monterey Institute of International Studies, located in Monterey, California.

Nikki Zimmerman '06 (Religious Studies, Russian minor)

Right after her graduation Nikki got an Americorps job with the Northwestern University Settlement House in NW Chicago. She worked at a secondary school as a teacher's aide, teaching some lessons herself, tutoring, running an after school program, and organizing volunteer projects for the kids and their parents. This year Nikki begins a graduate study at Monterey Institute of International Studies. The school provided her with a full financial support and also awarded her full fellowship to attend Middlebury Language School (Russian) for their summer intensive language program.

Anna Rodgers, '08 Double major, History and Foreign Languages (Russian & Spanish)

Anna joined the Peace Corps in September. She was nominated to teach English in Central Asia.

Recently Anna wrote to us: "I finally have an update regarding the Peace Corps! I've been invited to go to Kazakhstan in August. I'll be team teaching with a local teacher in a local primary or secondary school. More than likely I'll be sent to a village (population 4,000-9,000) or small town (10,000 - 30,000). I won't actually find out my exact assignment until I've completed 2-3 months of cultural and language training in the country. During that time I'll have the opportunity to study either Russian or Kazakh, as well as get some technical knowledge about how to teach English. After the training I'll become an official "volunteer" and spend 2 years at my site.