Mission statement:
A team of language instructors from leading American universities, we are experienced teachers who have worked with Russian for professional topics at intermediate-high and advanced levels for many years. We are passionate about creating new authentic materials that speak to the interests of our students. In recent years, universities and schools have witnessed greater interest in Language for Specific Purposes courses, in particular, learning a language in the context of professional (STEM) majors. In addition, many career tracks in federal and private sectors are in need of employees with advanced critical language proficiency, including Russian. We aspire to create a resource that will help students to start using Russian for professional purposes by extending their language to the STEM fields and engaging in academic communication. Our collaboration started in 2020, and in addition to this resource, we are currently working on a textbook “Russian for STEM and Professional Communication.”
About Our Team
Svetlana Abramova (University of Washington)
Dr. Abramova holds a master's degree in Linguistics and Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language from Pushkin State Russian Language Institute and Ph.D. in Methodology of Teaching Russian LanguŠ°ge from Moscow State Pedagogical University, Russia. Dr. Abramova is an affiliate lecturer at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures of the University of Washington where she teaches Advanced Russian through STEM. She develops interdisciplinary and content-based curricula for K-12 and university-level Russian programs, teaches STEM courses, and leads the instructor team in the STARTALK Russian Heritage Language programs at the University of Washington. [Link to the Program] Her teaching practice and research interests focus on content-based approaches and learner-centered pedagogical techniques, such as student research-based projects in Russian language, which were the main subject of her Ph.D. dissertation and a monograph.
Link to work website:
Veronika Egorova (Harvard University)
Dr. Egorova holds a PhD degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures from University of Washington, Seattle. She is a Senior Preceptor in Slavic Languages at Harvard University. She teaches all levels of Russian language and culture, including Russian for Heritage Speakers and Russian for Academic and Professional Purposes. Dr. Egorova also leads pedagogical training for TAs at the Slavic Department and is in charge of Harvard Summer Study Abroad Program in Tbilisi, Georgia. Her interest in teaching Russian through STEM formed as a result of working on an integrated curriculum for STEM STARTALK Russian Language Program for Heritage Speakers at the University of Washington (2012-2014) as well as developing a course “Russian through STEM” at Harvard University. Dr. Egorova’s research and other pedagogical interests include teaching Russian to heritage students, content-based and project-based teaching, and cross-cultural communication.
Link to work website:
Maria Khotimsky (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Dr. Khotimsky is a Senior Lecturer in Russian at MIT, where she teaches classes in Russian language, literature, and culture. She holds a PhD degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures. Her research and pedagogical interests include the history of literary translation in Russia, cross-cultural exchanges through translation, content-based language pedagogy, in particular, Russian for STEM. She is the co-editor (with Svetlana Nuss) of Content-Based Teaching of Russian (in press, Routledge, 2024). Her recent projects include Telemosty (https://www.telemosty.org/), a website to facilitate conversation exchanges, developed jointly with Marina Alexandrova and Irina Kogel.
Link to work website: https://languages.mit.edu/people/maria-khotimsky/