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.

Daina Eglitis (PhD, University of Michigan) currently serves as AABS’ President-Elect. She is Associate Professor of Sociology and International Affairs and Undergraduate Program Director at The George Washington University’s Columbian College of Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on the social dimensions of postcommunist transformations in Eastern Europe. She is especially interested in the ways in which transformation has affected women in the region and the ways in which women have responded to the dramatic changes of the last decade. She is also interested in demography and migration in the Eastern and Central European space. In 2021, she was co-editor of the book, Central and East European Politics, 5th edition (Rowman & Littlefield). Daina has twice been a Fulbright Scholar in Latvia and in 2015 was a Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. She continues to actively research, write, and speak about her work on Holocaust memory in the Baltic countries, and on women’s experiences of the Holocaust and World War II in the East and Central European region.

She served as President-Elect of AABS from 2024–2026.

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

Violeta Davoliūtė (PhD, University of Toronto) is a specialist in the politics of memory, historical trauma, and national identity. She is a Professor at Vilnius University, Institute of International Relations and Political Science, and a Senior Researcher at the Lithuanian Institute of History. Based on a deep engagement with oral and cultural history, she has published extensively on the experience, memory, and representation of the German and Soviet periods of foreign occupation, including the Making and Breaking of Soviet Lithuania: Memory and Modernity in the Wake of War. She held fellowships at the Vienna Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, Yale University, the Imre Kertesz Kolleg in Jena, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, among others. She is a co-editor of the CEU Press book series, Memory, Heritage and Public History in Central Europe. As the leader of the EUROPAST project (Horizon Europe 2022-2025), Prof. Davoliūtė managed a consortium of four universities from Lithuania, Sweden, Germany, and Luxembourg to study and promote best practices of public history. She maintains an active schedule of media and speaking engagements, hosts a regular podcast on public history, and serves as a historical advisor to documentary filmmakers and museums, such as the Lost Shtetl in Šeduva, Lithuania.

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

Ieva Zaķe (PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst) currently serves as AABS’ Secretary. She is 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 interwar 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.

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

Mart Kuldkepp (PhD, University of Tartu) is Professor of Estonian and Nordic History at UCL, and has held Visiting Professorships at University of Tartu and Yale University. He specialises on Scandinavian and Baltic history and politics and early 20th century wars. He has published in the idea of Estonia’s Nordic identity, German annexationism in the First World War, Swedish right-wing nationalism in 19th and early 20th century, and the experiences of soldiers in the First World War and the Estonian War of Independence. He is also interested in contemporary Baltic and Scandinavian politics, especially foreign and security policy, and is a frequent commentator on Estonian and international media.

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

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) currently serves as AABS Vice-President for Publications. She is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York-NYC College of Technology. Her research examines the social, material and power implications of agrarian and food system change in and outside of the Baltic States. She currently studies food sovereignty in Lithuania in the context of changing geopolitics and the role of family relations and care work in industrial agriculture. Her research has been supported by numerous grants, including awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright Program as well as fellowships and residencies in the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University; the Rachel Carson Center at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany; and European Studies programs at New York University and Harvard University.

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.

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

Aimee Herring currently serves as AABS’ Student Representative. She is a third year Ph.D. student in Linguistic Anthropology at the University of South Carolina. Her interests concern migration, language, identity and belonging, with a focus on Lithuania, where she is currently a Fulbright student researcher. Her anticipated dissertation research will center on the Lithuanian response to increased migration flows, including how migration and migrants are understood and constructed through discourse, social imaginaries, and material practices. A fluent speaker of the language, Aimee has been involved with Lithuania for a number of years through employment experience, social and familial ties, and academic research.

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

Jörg Hackmann (PhD, Free University Berlin) currently serves as President of AABS. He is Alfred Döblin Professor at the Department of History, University of Szczecin, Poland, and 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.

He served as President-Elect of AABS from 2022–2024 and as President from 2024–2026.

The Administrative Executive Director reports to the Board of Directors and has programmatic and operational responsibility for the Association. The Administrative Executive Director works closely with the Board of Directors to ensure the organization’s consistent achievement of its mission, program, and financial objectives.

Liisi Esse (PhD, University of Tartu) has served as the Administrative Executive Director of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies since 2019. She served as AABS’ Vice President for Conferences from 2016–2018 and organized the 2018 AABS Conference at Stanford University. She also served as Reviews Editor for the Association’s journal, Journal of Baltic Studies, from 2017–2025.
As her day job, Liisi works as Curator for Estonian and Baltic Studies at Stanford University Libraries. As Curator, her main responsibility is to develop Stanford’s collection of Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Finnish material in all formats, including books, periodicals, manuscripts, and electronic resources. Liisi also runs various Baltic programming and projects, including digitization projects, and organizes Baltic events and exhibits at Stanford.

The Executive Officer-at-Large is liaison between AABS and the University of Washington, and between AABS and the Baltic Studies Summer Institute.

Guntis Šmidchens (Phd, Indiana University) served as AABS Student Representative (1993-94), Vice President-Conferences (1997-98) and President (2008-2010). He is Associate Professor and Kazickas Family Endowed Professor in Baltic Studies at the Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle. He is author of articles about Baltic national heroes, Baltic Song Celebrations, and folklorism (folklore revival). His book, The Power of Song: Nonviolent National Culture in the Baltic Singing Revolution (University of Washington Press, 2014; Latvian translation Mansards 2017) received the AABS Book Award (2016). He is a founder of the University of Washington Baltic Studies Program (est. 1994) and the Baltic Studies Summer Institute (1994).
Šmidchens was awarded the Order of Cross of Terra Mariana, Fourth Class (Estonia, 2012), Cross of Recognition, Fourth Class (Latvia, 2014), and Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania, Fifth Class (2020). Recipient of the World Federation of Free Latvians 2014 National Award.

The Academic Executive Director develops contacts and cooperates with other learned societies like the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study and the German Studies Association.

Olavi Arens (PhD, Columbia University) is Professor of History at the Armstrong Campus of Georgia Southern University. He is a native of Estonia. Prof. Arens did his undergraduate work at Harvard University and his graduate studies at Columbia University where he earned a Ph.D. in Modern East European History and a Russian Institute Certificate. He has served as the president of the Southern Conference of Slavic Studies and as the AABS representative on the Council of Executive Officers of the American Council of Learned Societies and is currently the Academic Executive Director of the AABS. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on, among other topics, American relations with the Baltic States, the Brest-Litovsk treaty, and the Russian Revolution in Estonia. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Tallinn University in Estonia.

The Counsel to the Board advises the AABS Board of Directors on planning and strategizing the future development of AABS.

Andres Kasekamp (PhD, University College London) is the Elmar Tampõld Chair of Estonian Studies and Professor of History at the University of Toronto since 2017. Previously, he was Professor of Baltic Politics at the University of Tartu and Director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute. He gained his PhD in modern history from University College London in 1996. His first book was The Radical Right in Interwar Estonia (Macmillan 2000). His second book, A History of the Baltic States (Palgrave 2018, 2nd ed.), has been translated into nine languages. His research interests include populist radical right parties and cooperation and conflict in the Baltic Sea region. His work has been awarded the Estonian National Science Prize (humanities) and the Baltic Assembly Prize (science), and he is an honorary fellow of the Baltic Defence College. Prof. Kasekamp has served as the editor of the Journal of Baltic Studies, and as the President of AABS (2018-2020). He has appeared as an expert in the foreign affairs committee of the parliaments of Canada, Estonia, Finland and the European Union, as well as the Baltic Assembly.

The Assistant Director of Outreach and Engagement oversees AABS’ donor relations and fundraising efforts, maintains AABS’ presence on social media, advertises AABS’ grants and awards, assists the AABS Administrative Executive Director in maintaining and updating AABS’ website and publishing annual print newsletters and quarterly e-newsletters, and develops and proposes new strategies and initiatives for fostering outreach and community engagement.

Ben Gardner-Gill earned his BA in History from Stanford University, with a concentration in Modern Europe and a focus on historical memory. He studied abroad through Stanford’s center in Berlin, and conducted field research in Central Europe. He has completed internships in Estonia, Belgium, and Germany, and worked on political campaigns in the US before joining AABS.

The Newsletter Editor and Podcast Host works with the Administrative Executive Director in soliticing content for, editing, and designing the AABS annual print newsletter and hosting the AABS podcast, Baltic Ways.

Indra Ekmanis (PhD, University of Washington) is a Baltic Sea Fellow and Editor of the Baltic Bulletin at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. She earned her PhD in International Studies from the University of Washington in 2017. Her research focuses on social integration, minority rights, nationalism, civil society and democratic transition in Latvia and the broader Baltic region.
She was previously a Kennan Institute Title VIII Research Scholar at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and a Fulbright research award recipient. She also covered international news and analysis as an editor for public radio’s The World through the ACLS/Mellon Public Fellows Program.

The President of the Australasian Chapter of AABS organizes, with the help of the other committee members, the biannual AABS Australasian conference. He also maintains a Facebook page for the Chapter promoting Baltic studies in Australasia and beyond.

Delaney Skerrett has a PhD from The University of Queensland in which he critically analyzed Estonia’s progress in normalizing the interethnic use of Estonian in the post-1991 independence era. He also researched Estonian language policy for his Masters, which he did at the University of Tartu. Delaney spent over 7 years living in Estonia studying and teaching. Today, Delaney is a registered psychologist in Brisbane, Australia, having done a Master of Professional Psychology at the Australian Catholic University. He is also the Honorary Consul for Estonia in Brisbane.