Olga Abilova is a Norwegian graduate student currently pursuing a Master’s degree in International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies and Economics from the University of Oslo and a Licence 3 in political science and law from Université Panthéon Assas (Paris 2). She has previously interned at the Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations and Amnesty International, before she worked on an international civil society project for an environmental NGO, building cross-border ties between youth activists. Most recently she spent the summer with the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO, assessing the socioeconomic drivers of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She is very honored to have been chosen to be a Thanks To Scandinavia scholar, seeing as their work to strengthen ties and increase mutual understanding between nations and individuals is essential in finding ways to resolve violent conflict, while preventing mass killings and atrocities at the same time.
Kajsa Djärv is a Swedish PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds an MA Honors degree in Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh and an MPhil in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from the University of Cambridge. Kajsa’s work investigates the relationship between the structural representation of language in the minds of speakers and the processing mechanisms by which such representations are integrated with broader information about the speech context. She is part of an ongoing research project analyzing aspects of syntactic variation in the Mainland Scandinavian languages.
David Eriksson is a 25-year old Swedish student currently enrolled in the Center of Applied Mathematics PhD program at Cornell University. He holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Engineering Mathematics from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. Besides his studies he has done two internships at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and worked at the research institute Fraunhofer Chalmers Centre in Sweden.
Pål Granum is a Norwegian guitar player and music technologist with an educational background from the Norwegian Academy of Music. He has released several CDs with a varied repertoire of music and has collaborated with composers of new music in Norway and internationally. As a performing artist he has played concerts in Scandinavia, European countries, South America, Asia and the US, appeared on national radio and TV broadcasts, and appeared in festivals for guitar and contemporary music. For further in-depth explorations of guitar and instrumental interfaces with digital technology, Pål Granum is currently attending post graduate studies in music technology at the California Institute of Arts in Valencia, California.
Oscar Hållén, from Stockholm, Sweden, holds a Master of Law from Stockholm University and is currently engaged in LLM studies at The University of Chicago Law School. His studies focus on comparative legal issues in relation to securities law. Oscar has previously served as a speech writer for the Swedish Prime Minister and worked as an attorney for a global law firm.
Selma Hedlund earned her BA in Human Rights Studies at Lund University, Sweden in 2013. She is currently working on her MA of Sociology at Columbia University, New York. In her thesis, Selma aims to explore immigrants’ pathways to American citizenship through qualitative ethnographic methods. Previous research topics are social justice, postcolonialism, intersectionality and socialization through media and popular culture.
Saila Huusko is a journalist and filmmaker currently based in New York City. She’s a member of the 2014-15 Class of Columbia Journalism School’s documentary program and is currently working on her first feature documentary. Recently, she worked as a fellow with the GroundTruth Project at GlobalPost and with Al Jazeera America. Prior to attending Columbia, she worked for three years in communications at the Helsinki-based conflict resolution NGO Crisis Management Initiative. Originally hailing from the north of Finland, Ms. Huusko is a graduate of Middlebury College and the Mahindra United World College of India.
Katrine Øgaard Jensen is a Danish journalist, translator, and writer. She works as the Danish editor-at-large for the international literary journal Asymptote, while serving on the judging panel for the prestigious Best Translated Book Award. Katrine is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Columbia University, majoring in fiction and literary translation. At Columbia University she has been awarded two fellowship positions: one as the editor-in-chief of the annual publication Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and one as the director of the Columbia Artist/Teachers Program. She also works as an assistant for the Literary Translation Program. In 2014, she was selected for the Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s Pine Tree Scholar Program at Columbia University.
Iliana Lazarova is a is a joint Thanks To Scandinavia and Fulbright Scholar from Bulgaria, pursuing a Master of Environmental Management at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University. She earned her B.A. in International Economic Relations from the University of National and World Economy, participating also in an academic exchange at Barnard College, Columbia University. Prior to starting her graduate studies, Iliana was engaged in education and activities promoting active social participation. She was a teacher in a middle school working with underprivileged students while at the same time she served as the Bulgarian Youth Delegate to the United Nations. She aspires to develop professionally in the areas of renewable energy and industrial ecology. Her dream is to promote and create a low-carbon society that respects finite resources of the Earth and lives sustainably.
Saara Raasu is originally from Finland. She completed her B.A. at Queen Mary College of the University of London in the United Kingdom, her M.A. at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and is now a third-year Ph.D. student at the English Department of the University of Oklahoma. Drawing from this background, she applies her intercultural skills in intellectual work and teaching. Both her M.A. and doctoral research examine literary and cultural studies on how ordinary people live their daily lives in between cultures in the age of transnationalism. Her M.A. thesis focused on the reflections of diasporic identity in Asian-American fiction from the perspectives of diaspora theory, geography, and neuropsychology. Currently, Saara’s scholarly work centers on expressions of transnationalism, American exceptionalism, and critiques of neoliberal political economy in contemporary American literature. In her spare time, she studies Mandarin Chinese at the Confucius Institute of the University of Oklahoma. Saara is honored to be a Thanks To Scandinavia Scholar, and looks forward to engaging with other Scandinavian and American scholars over interdisciplinary work and matters of cultural diversity.
Kim Wall is a freelance journalist and Columbia graduate student of International Affairs and Journalism, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Sweden, Kim has a background in international affairs and political analysis, with particular focus on South/East Asian news, politics and culture. She has previously worked in Hong Kong, China, India, Australia and Sri Lanka and is especially interested in covering gender, security, development and human rights. Her work has appeared in publications such as New York Times, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Slate, ChinaFile, VICE, South China Morning Post, The Diplomat and The Independent.