The Graduate School for Social Research

Sarah Grunberg graduated from Ithaca College in 2008 with a degree in Culture and Communication with a focus on Media and Cultural Studies.

Shortly after graduation, she moved to Warsaw, Poland to pursue her Masters in Culture Media and Society at the Graduate School for Social Research (2008/2009). Later she continued her studies at the GSSR at the PhD level focusing on the issue of the individual and family identities of Polish-African families in Poland.

After obtaining her PhD diploma (2017) Sarah Grunberg moved back to the US and joined the faculty at the Department of Sociology, Ithaca College. She specializes in Race and Ethnic Relations; Social Change; Conflict and Resolution; Intergroup Dialogue and Qualitative Methods.

After graduating with MA in Economy and Society  in 2010 Daler Kabilov returned to Tajikistan and started his professional career at Baker Tilly. At present, he is Managing Partner in Baker Tilly (Tajikistan).

Baker Tilly is a team of professionals with significant experience in global audit firms, our employees are holders and students of the international ACCA certification program, certified auditors and appraisers, members of audit and accounting unions.

Baker Tilly’s employees have significant experience in audit and consulting of banking, microfinance and other financial institutions, insurance and leasing companies, service and manufacturing industries, mining industry, energy and non-commercial organizations.

Baker Tilly in Central Asia are independent members of Baker Tilly International audit network. Baker Tilly International is one of the world’s leading networks, uniting independent companies to provide top-quality professional services in both international and regional markets.

Baker Tilly International is the world’s 8th largest accountancy and business advisory network. It is represented by 125 firms in 145 countries with more than 34,700 people worldwide. The network has its headquarters in London.

Cristina Rat (MA in Culture, Media and Society 2001-2)  returned to Romania  to begin doctoral  studies at  “Babes-Bolyai” University Cluj Napoca. In 2003– 2004 she held an OSI/FCO Chevening Scholarship at the Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford. In 2008 she was awarded   her PhD in Sociology  awarded  at the Faculty of Sociology  and  Social  Work  of the “Babes-Bolyai” University Cluj Napoca. She is now lectures in the Sociology  Department of that university.

David Stulik (MA in Society and Politics 1996-1997) is presently working as the Press and Information Officer at the EU Delegation in Kyiv, Ukraine. Prior to this position, he was shortly employed in the Czech Deputy Prime Minister Office, where he dealt with the preparations for the Czech EU Presidency. Before joining the public sector, David acted as the Head of Unit for Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova and the Coordinator of democracy projects in Eastern Europe in one of the largest Central European NGO, People in Need.

Previously, he served as the Project Manager at the Civil Society Development Foundation (NROS), which has been predominantly involved in the administration of PHARE programs aimed at the development of civil society in the Czech Republic. There, Mr. Stulik was coordinating 3-years project on preparations of Czech NGOs for EU accession, which was funded by CEE TRUST program.

He was also lecturing at the Charles University at the Department of Civil Society Sector. After the EU accession he has been appointed by the Czech government as a member of the European Economic and Social Committee, where he represented Czech non-governmental sector and also served as the Rapporteur for Belarus.

His professional experience also includes working for the independent Czech think tank, Institute for European policies Europeum, which he has co-founded. Mr. Stulik also served as Project Manager and Executive Assistant to Senior Vice President of the EastWest Institute, Euro-American think tank. During his studies he held the position of Vice President of AEGEE-Europe (European Students’ Association). In 1997 he received the award “Young European of the Year”.

Simon Lewis (MA in Culture, Media and Society,  2009) completed a PhD in Slavonic Studies in 2014 at the University of Cambridge, where he also worked on the HERA-sponsored international research project Memory at War: Cultural Dynamics in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (2010-13). Before coming to Warsaw he studied at the University of Oxford (BA in Russian and Linguistics, 2005).

 Before joining FU Berlin as a DRS Research Fellow in January 2016, he was a Research Assistant on the project “The Jagiellonians: Dynasty, Memory and Identity in Central Europe”, based at the University of Oxford, and a Visiting Fellow at the Social Memory Laboratory, Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw (2014-15). He also co-convenes the “Genealogies of Memory” conference series, which is based in Warsaw and run by the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity.

Gregory Kossinets (MA in Economy and Society , 1999-2000) came to GSSR after completing a degree in Physics at Ogarev Mordovia State University.  After leaving GSSR he went to Columbia University where he was awarded his PhD in 2006. After working 2 years as a researcher at Cornell University he joined Google in San Francisco.  Since 2017 he has been Director of Data Science at Stitch Fix.

Dr. Justice Richard Kwabena Owusu Kyei is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Work in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. He is an adjunct fellow in the Centre for Cultural and African Studies, KNUST. He won the 2019 African Peacebuilding Network Individual Research Grant from the Social Science Resear hc Council. He was a Visiting Research Fellow in the African Studies Centre Leiden from January until March 2020. He is a member of the Sub-Saharan African Migration Network (S-SAM) in the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. He is also the principal investigator in the 2019 KNUST Research Fund KReF) on suicide and suicide ideation in KNUST. His research interests are in political conflicts, religion, gender and migration.

He has a PhD in Sociology from the Graduate School for Social Research in the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFIS PAN), Warsaw. He also holds MA in Economy and Society from Lancaster University,UK (also gained at GSSR). His BA in Theology was obtained from the Holy Cross Pontifical University, Rome

Zeynep  Talay Turner has been working as an Assistant Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University since 2017 , offering philosophy courses in the Philosophy and Social Thought MA programme as well as in the Cultural Studies MA Programme. She is also the director of the Cultural Studies MA programme.

Soon after she had completed her PhD at GSSR, she started to study Sculpture in The Art Academy in London  but two years later returned to Istanbul. She has had several exhibitions.

Myroslava from Ukraine, is an historian, sociologist, and specialist in field of migration of Ukrainians to Poland. She graduated from the GSSR in 2007. Since the Orange Revolution in Ukraine she has been engaged in defending the rights of Ukrainian migrants in Poland. Together with other alumnae of the GSSR she established the Ukrainian migrant organization “Our Choice”. She became the Head of this of this organization and the Chief-editor of the newspaper “Nash Vybir.” In her daily work she combines designing and implementation of integration activities directed to Ukrainian migrants in Poland with research projects in the field of migration studies.

The “Our Choice” Foundation has established  the Ukrainian House in Warsaw. This House is the cultural and integration centre for the Ukrainian diaspora in Warsaw, but also a meeting point for Ukrainians and Poles and a place for their common projects.