معرفی
Dr. Vera Smirnova is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences at Kansas State University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Political Science. She also serves as an Adjunct Researcher at the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on the intersection of political geography, territorial politics, and legal geography, particularly the relationship between land and power in post-socialist and authoritarian contexts.
- Ph.D. from the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech
- Former Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow
- Recipient of multiple prestigious awards including Fulbright Scholarship and Antipode Foundation Travel Award
Her work critically examines land appropriation through formal and informal power technologies, addressing geopolitical imaginaries in Russia's territorial politics and coloniality debates. She draws on traditions of Russian spatial sciences often overlooked in Eurocentric discussions of space and power.
Scientific awards include:
- Fulbright Scholarship
- Erasmus Plus Mobility Grant
- IJURR Dissertation Writing-Up Grant
- Antipode Foundation Institute for the Geographies of Justice Travel Award
