Washington DC-Baltimore Area
Multilingual academic and strategic communications expert with extensive experience in international organizations, tech journalism buildout, and university-level teaching and research. Focused on Russia, Ukraine, and the German-speaking countries, with native-level fluency in all three foreign languages. Proven track record in project pipeline management in developing world and public sector. Adept at managing transnational crisis communications and countering misinformation. Dedicated online media professional with history of driving user adoption. Specialties: Media monitoring and analysis, crisis communications, social media and web content management, counter-propaganda, media training, academic research, university teaching, Russian and Ukrainian politics and society, German politics and society, foreign language fluency, conflict resolution, rule of law, democratization, public speaking.
Valentyna Polunina is a Doctoral Candidate at the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context", Heidelberg University, where she is working on her Ph.D. thesis on the Soviet war crimes trials policy in the Far East after World War II.
Project: Acceptance of International Criminal Justice. Case study: Ukraine.