POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
Maria Repnikova
2014-2015
Maria Repnikova is the 2014-2015 PARGC Postdoctoral Fellow. Maria holds a PhD (DPhil) in political science from University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar and a Wai Seng Senior Scholar. Her current research focuses on state-media relations in China, drawing some comparisons to Russia and the Soviet Union. In the past, she has researched Chinese migration to Russia as a Fulbright Scholar, and the political aspects of China's journalism education for her master's dissertation. Her work appeared in academic publications, as well as in media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera English, and Russia's Vedomosti. Maria also has professional experience in the media and communications sector as the Overseas Press Club fellow for Reuters agency in Beijing, and an intern for Google communications team in London and Moscow. She speaks fluent Mandarin, Russian and Spanish. As a PARGC fellow, Maria will be reworking her doctoral dissertation into a book manuscript, as well as examining China’s evolving approaches to crisis communication and comparing the media environment in China and Russia in more detail. She tweets at @MariaRepnikova.
Donatella Della Ratta
2013-2014
Donatella Della Ratta served as the first PARGC postdoctoral fellow during the 2013-2014 academic year. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago, Center for the study of Race, Politics, and Culture and an Affiliate to the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She obtained her PhD on the politics of Syrian TV drama from the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. She has authored two monographies and curated chapters on Arab TV and new media in several collective books. Donatella has also a background in community management and Internet activism: she managed the Arabic speaking community for international NGO Creative Commons for five years, and is co-founder of the web aggregator Syria Untold. She maintains a blog on Arab media at http://mediaoriente.com and tweets avidly at @donatelladr.
