Welcome AABS 2022–2024 Board of Directors!

Apr 4, 2022

The election of the AABS 2022-2024 Board of Directors was held on April 1, 2022 with online voting beginning on March 18. Following the precedent set in the organization’s 2020 election, the election was carried out both online and via mailed-in paper ballots.

Altogether, 145 AABS current members (47.23% of the total number of current AABS members) participated in the election – the vast majority of them online. All seven candidates set by the AABS Nominating Committee received over 97% of the votes and will thus assume office starting from July 1, 2022. AABS thanks the candidates and everyone who participated in the election.


The AABS Nominating Committee is pleased to announce that the following candidates were elected to serve on the 2022–2024 AABS Board of Directors:


President-Elect

Jörg Hackmann, University of Szczecin

The President-Elect aids the President in the carrying out of his or her duties in a coordinated effort to provide a continuity of Association’s administration. He or she automatically succeeds to the Presidency at the end of the two year term following his or her election to the office of the President-Elect.

Jörg Hackmann (PhD, Free University Berlin) is Alfred Döblin Professor at the Department of History, University of Szczecin, Poland, and since 2021 Director of the International Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Szczecin. He is also associated with the University of Greifswald, Germany, and serves as Vice-President of the Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council (Germany). Jörg Hackmann holds a PhD from the Free University Berlin and received his habilitation at Greifswald University. He has been a visiting scholar at many universities in the Baltic sea region as well as in Chicago. Publications focus on the history of North-Eastern and East Central Europe, in particular on historiography, memory cultures, civil society and regionalisms with a focus on transnational entanglements. Most recent publications include Geselligkeit in Nordosteuropa (Sociability in North-Eastern Europe), Harrassowitz 2020. Current research interests include the role of history in Baltic Sea region building, a biography of Werner Hasselblatt, and the Jewish topography of (German) Szczecin.

Vice President for Professional Development

Kaarel Piirimäe, University of Tartu

The Vice President for Professional Development coordinates and facilitates scholarly activities to develop Baltic Studies, especially in the Baltic states.

Kaarel Piirimäe (PhD, University of Cambridge) is Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Tartu and Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2009 with a thesis on the Big Three Allies and the Baltic states in WWII (published as Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Baltic Question: Allied Relations during the Second World War, 2014). Piirimäe has edited several volumes and special journal issues on the history of the Baltic states in the twentieth century. His recent writings include an article on Liberalism and the small states, Gorbachev’s new thinking and the Soviet republics, and concepts of time in Estonia’s transition from perestroika to the market. Currently he is researching Estonian foreign and security policies in the 1990s.

Vice President for Conferences

Bradley Woodworth, University of New Haven/Yale University

The Vice President for Conferences plans and organizes conferences for the exchange of research findings and professional views.

Bradley Woodworth (PhD, Indiana University) is Associate Professor of History at the University of New Haven and Program Manager of the Baltic Studies Program at Yale University. His primary research interest is the multiethnic lands around the Baltic Sea. He has published widely on the history of Estonia in particular. His most recent work includes the article “Estonian Modern History in the Twenty-First Century,” published in 2020 in the journal Acta Historica Tallinnensia (co-written with historian Karsten Brüggemann) and the article “Why Washington hesitated to support Lithuania’s independence 31 years ago,” published in March 2021 by LRT – Lithuania’s Radio and Television network (co-written with political scientist Matthew Schmidt). 

Vice President for Publications

Diana Mincyte, City University of New York

The Vice President for Publications plans and directs the Association’s publications program and oversees its awards and prizes programs.

Diana Mincyte (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York-City Tech. Her research focuses on environmental politics and food; gender and agriculture; science and technology studies; and socialism/postsocialism in the Baltic states. Trained in sociology, she engages in interdisciplinary and collaborative projects. She has published in leading journals, co-edited two volumes, collaborated on a book, and guest-edited a number of special issues in journals. Her research has been supported by grants, including awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright Program. She held fellowships and residences in the Rachel Carson Center for the Environment and Society at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany; the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University; and European Studies at New York University and Harvard University. Her latest research focuses on social reproduction and circular economies.

Secretary

Ieva Zaķe, Millersville University

The Secretary prepares comprehensive meeting minutes and assists the executive office with correspondence, records, and elections while serving on committees as necessary.

Ieva Zaķe (PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst) currently serves as Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Millersville University. She was previously Vice Provost at The College of New Jersey, and professor of sociology and Associate Dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at Rowan University. She is an author of American Latvians: Politics of a Refugee Community and Anti-Communist Minorities in the US: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees as well as numerous articles dealing with issues of nationalism in Latvia during the inter-war period, intellectuals in politics, post-communist politics, tourism to the USSR during the cold war era and post-World War II Eastern European immigrants in the US.

Treasurer

Uģis Sprūdžs, CFA

The Treasurer prepares the annual budget, makes authorized investments, supervises collections and disbursements of funds, and maintains proper accounting records. He prepares and presents the financial reports of the Association.

Uģis Sprūdžs, CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) was recently Senior Manager at Allstate. He has over thirty years’ experience working as a manager and data analyst. He earned his BA, MAT, and MBA (1984) at the University of Chicago, where he studied Finance, Econometrics, Education, and German. Sprūdžs is also an active member of the American Latvian community; he served as president, investment adviser, and auditor of the Latvian Foundation (1997-2003) and is a discussion leader of the Chicago Latvian Literary Club. Sprūdžs is the author of “Ziedonis, Pauls: ‘Holy Eves’: A Poem and Its Metamorphosis in Song,” in Imants Ziedonis. Search for Belonging, Practice of Freedom, edited by Ausma Cimdiņa. Rīga: Zinātne, 2014.

Student Representative

Ian Gwin, University of Washington

The Student Representative advocates the undergraduate and graduate student interests in the association, promotes grants and awards, and organizes student workshops at conferences.

Ian Gwin is a writer, translator, and literary scholar. He is currently pursuing his MA in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures at the University of Washington. His research touches on the history of decadence and early modernism in Nordic writing and intellectual history, with focuses on relationships and interactions in Estonian and Finnish literature. Current translations include stories by the short-lived Estonian decadent Jaan Oks, andBerlin,a book of stories by contemporary Latvian writer Andris Kuprišs. His own writing has appeared in Spectra Poetry, Drifting Sands, and Mayfly Haiku.

Automatic change of status from President-Elect:

President

Dovilė Budrytė, Georgia Gwinnett College

The President is the chief executive officer of the Association, performing all duties required by the Constitution and Bylaws, or, if not specified, those approved by the Board of Directors. Following his or her term the President becomes the Director-at-Large.

Dovilė Budrytė (PhD, Old Dominion University) served as Vice President of Publications on the AABS board in 2016-2018 and 2018-2020. She is Professor of Political Science and Chair of Faculty (Political Science) at Georgia Gwinnett College. In 2015, 2018 and 2019 she was a visiting professor at Vilnius University and Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. She has published articles and books on various topics related to minority rights and memory politics in Lithuania, including Memory and Trauma in International Relations: Theories, Cases and Debates (co-editor with Erica Resende, Routledge 2013), and Crisis and Change in Post-Cold War Global Politics: Ukraine in a Comparative Perspective (co-edited with Erica Resende and Didem Buhari, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). In 2014/15, she was the recipient of the University System of Georgia Excellence in Teaching Award.

Automatic change of status from President:

Director-at-Large

Daunis Auers, University of Latvia

The Director-at-Large serves as the Chairperson of the Nominating Committee and performs other duties as specifically requested by the Board of Directors.

Daunis Auers (PhD, University College London) is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Latvia. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California-Berkeley (2005-2006) and a Baltic-American Freedom Foundation Scholar at Wayne State University in Detroit (2014). He has published widely on political parties, elections and referendums as well as populism and the radical right in Baltic and European politics. His most recent book – The Comparative Government and Politics of the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the 21st Century – was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015. Much of his recent research has been more policy-oriented, focusing on the growth and economic impact of international students in Latvia, projections of Latvia’s demographic future and studies of the competitiveness of the city of Riga.

The list of current AABS Board of Directors can be found here and a thorough overview of the election process is listed in the organization’s bylaws.

Questions? Contact us at [email protected] 

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