Dr. Ekaterina Mikhailova

Ekaterina Mikhailova is a Political Geographer working at the crossroads of Post-Soviet Area Studies, Border Studies and Governance.

Ekaterina studied Public Administration at Lomonosov Moscow State University and holds a doctorate in Human Geography from the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences. Before joining IOS, Ekaterina worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland (Finland, 2018-2019), University of Geneva and Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (both in Switzerland, 2020-2022).

As a Postdoctoral Researcher at the IOS Regensburg, Ekaterina examines comparatively how post-Soviet borders in selected countries – Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and Ukraine, Belarus and Russia – have been oscillating between conflict and cooperation in practice, border-related narratives and imaginaries produced by elites and borderlanders.

In addition to her research project, Ekaterina coordinates the KonKoop junior research group and plays a central role in creating a database of knowledge-production centres for Peace and Conflict Studies in Eastern Europe.