CESSI students will join an in-class panel featuring global professionals who will share how language skills and regional expertise have shaped their paths across a range of fields. Panelists will offer stories, advice, and insights to help you explore career possibilities, build connections, and see how your skills can lead to meaningful, globally connected work.
Dennis Keen is a researcher and educator with a specialization in the history and culture of Kazakhstan. He is the founder of Walking Almaty, a blog on urbanism and architecture as well as Almaty’s top walking tour provider, and the creator of Monumental Almaty, a research and advocacy project on the city’s Soviet monumental art heritage. In addition to his research projects, Keen has written guidebooks to national parks and Soviet art in Kazakhstan, and works as a translator from Russian and Kazakh, having most recently translated “Impressions of America” by the Kazakh writer Mukhtar Auezov. As a lecturer, he’s taught courses on Kazakh history, culture and language at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Marika Olijar is a sixth-year PhD candidate in political science at UW–Madison, specializing in comparative politics with a regional focus on post-Soviet Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Her research examines religion and politics, informal institutions, and identity. She earned dual BAs in Slavic Studies and Political Science, along with a REEES Certificate, from the University of Pittsburgh. She has also completed advanced training at the Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research at Syracuse University and the LAPOP Summer School in International Survey Methods at Vanderbilt University. In 2024-25, she was an American Councils Title VIII research scholar in Kazakhstan. She speaks Ukrainian, Russian, and Kazakh, having completed CESSI and the AY Kazakh program from beginner to advanced. Her work has been published in Central Asian Survey.