education

M.S., Library and Information Science (2008) – Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • Beta Phi Mu, inducted 2008
  • Jane B. and Robert B. Downs Professional Promise Award
  • Lucile Huntington Wilkinson Fellowship
  • ALA Spectrum Scholar
  • ARL Diversity Fellow
  • Digital Libraries Fellowship
  • Illinois Library Association Sylvia Murphy Williams Scholarship

Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures (2003) – Yale University

  • Major concentration: 19th-century and 20th-century Russian narrative fiction and Russian poetry
  • Minor concentration: 19th-century American Literature
  • Dissertation: “Poetry in Perpetuity: Desire, Death, and the Beloved in Afanasy Fet’s Lyrics to Mariia Lazich” (abstract)

A.B., Russian Language and Literature (1984) – Mount Holyoke College

When I was studying Russian literature as a doctoral student, I had the chance to teach a couple of undergraduate seminars on the works of Lev Tolstoy in translation. I have read Tolstoy’s War and Peace five times – once in Russian. My record is nothing, however, compared to those of my friends and mentors still active in the field!