People

Stanislav Shvabrin

Director, UNC Undergraduate Russian Flagship Program
Associate Professor of Russian, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures
312 Dey Hall • shvabrin@email.unc.edu

In addition to heading the UNC Russian Flagship, Shvabrin directs the Russian Program in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. He has taught Russian at all levels, including intensive, study-abroad, heritage, Flagship and STARTALK course sequences, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the California State University, Northridge (CSUN), as well as other institutions of higher learning in the US and abroad.

Kat Goodpaster

Assistant Director, UNC Undergraduate Russian Flagship Program
310 Dey Hall • katgp@email.unc.edu

Kat is a graduate student in the UNC Global Studies M.A. program with a concentration in Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies. She graduated in May 2021 from UNC with her B.A. in Peace, War, and Defense with a minor in Russian Language and Culture. At UNC, she has been a part of numerous student organizations and worked in multiple university departments. In her spare time, she volunteers with organizations that support Gold Star families.

Natalia Chernysheva

Tutoring Director, UNC Undergraduate Russian Flagship Program
430 Dey Hall • chernysn@email.unc.edu

Natalia (Natasha) Chernysheva is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Russian. Natasha earned her PhD from UNC in 2017 in Slavic Language and Literatures. Apart from teaching a wide range of Russian language courses, her academic interests include the investigation of Lev Tolstoy’s oeuvre, specifically the interdisciplinary study in the representation of sensory impressions in his writings.

Tatyana Miller

Tanya is a native Russian speaker who earned her BA in International Studies with a major in Russian from UNC Charlotte. While being a UNCC student, she was a recipient of a scholarship Youth4Health from the Department of State, which entailed a cultural trip of UNC Charlotte students to Voronezh, Russia. She has been a Russian Conversation coach at NCVPS working with high school students on improving Russian on different levels. She is very excited to be a part of the UNC Russian Flagship Program and contribute to the Russian language initiative by engaging UNC students by giving them a positive language study experience.  Tanya also has an MS degree in Economics & Accounting from the Ural State University of Economics, Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Irene Delic

After retiring from Ohio State University where she was a professor of Russian literature, and moving to North Carolina, Irene was very happy to have the opportunity to stay in touch with her profession by tutoring at UNC. She feels fortunate to be part of UNC Russian Flagship Program and greatly enjoys her contacts with the wonderful students she meets.

Elham Kamrani

Elham Kamrani is a Ph.D. student in Russian Linguistics. Originally from Iran. She received her M.A. from the faculty of philology, Belarusian State University; she wrote her dissertation on the Lexico-Semantic field of emotion in Russian translations of Khayyam’s poetry. Growing up both in Iran and also studying in Belarus for years endowed her with the unique insight into the complexity of the Persian and Russian languages, where she now works as a translator. The books include “Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky” and “Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster” by Svetlana Alexievich (Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature). She is currently working on a translation of “Red Cavalry” by Isaac Babel.

Ryan Rowe

Ryan is a graduate from UNC Chapel Hill, where he studied Slavic Languages and Music. Since graduating in 2018, he has gone on to teach and coach Russian diction for opera singers as well as assist with performances of contemporary and canonical works within the Russian repertoire across the Midwest and the East Coast. Most recently, Ryan worked as the Russian Language Lab Instructor at Macalester College while completing an M.M. in Vocal Performance at the University of Minnesota. Currently, Ryan resides in Budapest, where he studies Hungarian Culture and Language at the KKM Magyar Diplomáciai Akadémia. Ryan is very grateful to be back at UNC and to be able to assist with the Russian Flagship Program.

Inessa Fishbeyn

Inessa Fishbeyn has a Master’s degree from Kazan State University. She is an independent scholar, passionate amateur Platonist, and translator, living in Chapel Hill. With her husband, UNC philosopher, C. D. C. Reeve, she has translated, Marina Tsvetaeva, The Story of Sonechka, forthcoming from Columbia University Press, and “Khlystovki,” recently published in the Fortnightly Review. A translation of Tsvetaeva’s complete prose works is in progress.

Eliza Bryant

Eliza is a sophomore double majoring in Russian Language & Culture and Peace, War & Defense. She began her study of Russian her freshman year at UNC and plans on continuing her language development through studying abroad. Eliza is also a member of Women in National Security.

Kate Klinger

Kate is a sophomore double majoring in Peace, War, and Defense and Russian Language and Culture, with a minor in Geographic Information Sciences. She serves as the Program Director of Women in National Security, is an active member of UNC Global and the Diplomacy Initiative, and is currently learning German.

Sasha Hase

Sasha is a senior double majoring in Political Science and Russian. She just recently did a summer abroad in Latvia and will soon be completing her capstone year in Kazakhstan. She also loves tennis and photography and getting excited with people about foreign cultures.

Natalia Chernysheva

Tutoring Program Coordinator; Teaching Assistant Professor of Russian
Interests: Language Pedagogy, 19th-century Russian literature, Sensory and Haptic Studies

Radislav Lapushin

Associate Professor of Russian Literature
Interests: Chekhov, Poetry of Russian Prose (19th century to the present), Russian Literature on Stage and Screen, Soviet poetry

Eleonora Magomedova

Teaching Associate Professor in Russian Language and Conversation
Interests: Russian language and literature, pedagogy

Matthew McGarry

Teaching Assistant Professor of Russian
Interests: Ethics and practice of rhetoric; Nineteenth-century Russian prose fiction; Odes of Mandel’stam, Pasternak, and Brodsky; Soviet Russian metahistorical romances

Adnan Džumhur

UNCRFP Budget Manager
Associate Director, CSEEES
3109 FedEx Global Education Center • dzumhur@email.unc.edu

Kathryn Ulrich

UNCRFP Business Administrator
Business Manager, CSEEES
3106 FedEx Global Education Center • kathryn.ulrich@email.unc.edu