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                                                                                                    Fellowships and awards

Highlights:

I was born in St.-Petersburg (then: Leningrad), Russia (then: USSR) on Apr. 15, 1980. Studying the humanities is a family trend: my father, Sergei Nikolaev, is a specialist in the history of Slavic literatures, my mother, Elena Nikolaeva, is a professor of Russian language and my uncle, Nikolai Nikolaev, is a head curator of the old books and manuscripts collection at the University Library. So I have figured out my own career path at a relatively early age.

In 1992-1997 I took classes at school 610 where I first learned Latin and Greek. Having developed an early interest in languages, I majored in Linguistics and Classics at college, where Leonard Herzenberg and Nikolai Kazansky introduced me to Indo-European Linguistics. During my study abroad in 2000 I studied in Vienna and Uppsala; thanks to the classes I took with Martin Peters Greek historical grammar became one of my main research fields. Ever since that time I have been spending at least a couple of weeks in Vienna every summer.

After the college I first entered the graduate program of Russian Academy of Science, but two years later I went to Harvard to study Indo-European Linguistics, Greek, Indo-Iranian, Celtic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic with Jay Jasanoff, Jeremy Rau, Gregory Nagy, Oktor Skjærvø, Michael Flier and Michael Witzel. 

I started my teaching career at St.-Petersburg University and now I am teaching at Harvard as a teaching assistant. I find teaching extremely gratifying and I enjoy doing it a lot. Another job I have had for an extended period of time is that of an in-house translator: for two years I was doing trilingual translation at a printing house and as a result I know more about offset printing than I would ever want to.

I married Elena Lisitskaya in 2005 and we currently live in Cambridge, MA. Our daughter Lisa was born here in 2009 on Feb. 23.

Employment history:

Harvard University

Teaching fellow                                                                      September 2007 – present

Courses taught:

         Linguistics 120 (Introduction to Historical Linguistics)    

         Linguistics 110 (Introduction to Linguistics)

         Linguistics 97r (Sophomore Tutorial: Morphological Types Across Languages)

         Linguistics 98a (Junior Tutorial: Writing Systems)

         Core Curriculum: Literature and Arts C-14 (Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization)

         Core Curriculum: Social Analysis 34 (Knowledge of Language); head teaching fellow in Spring 2009

 Service:

         Coordinator of the GSAS Workshop for Indo-European Linguistics (September 2007-2009)

         Assistant Head Tutor (2009-present)

         Departmental Teaching Fellow (2009-present)

      

Institute of Linguistic Research (St.-Petersburg, Russia),

Department of Indo-European Languages

Junior research fellow                                                           June 2001 – September 2005

 

St.-Petersburg University (St.-Petersburg, Russia),

School of Arts and Letters,  Department of General Linguistics

Lecturer                                                                             September 2003 – June 2005

                      Courses taught: Archaic Latin; Introduction to Avestan

                  MDM-Print (St.-Petersburg, Russia)
                  in-house interpreter (German-English-Russian)              September 2003 – June 2005


Education:

         Harvard University                                                           2005 – present

         Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Department of Linguistics

Secondary Field in Classical Philology                             2009

Russian Academy of Sciences                                            2003–2005

Institute of Linguistic Research

Department of Indo-European Languages

cand.phil., Linguistics and Classics (2006)

Dissertation: "The Reflexes of Proto-Indo-European Accent-Ablaut Paradigms in Greek" (332 p. + abstract 26 p.)

Committee: Leonard Herzenberg (advisor), Beatrisa Khodorkovskaya, Alexey Solopov (external readers); Department of General Linguistics, St.-Petersburg State University (external reviewing organization); Nikolai Kazansky, Nikolai Sukhachev, Maria Voeikova (examinators). Abstract reviewed by Konstantin Krasukhin.

St.-Petersburg University

Department of General Linguistics

M.A., Linguistics, summa cum laude                                   1997–2003

 

Additional training:

University of Vienna                                                                   September 2000–March 2001

(Abteilung Indogermanistik, Institut für Sprachwissenschaft)

        Lectures: Heiner Eichner, Martin Peters

         University of Uppsala                                                           March 2001 – June 2001

        Lectures: Christiane Shaefer

Free‑University, Berlin                                                          March 2001

(Seminar für Vergleichende und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft,

Institut für Indogermanistik und Orientalistik)

        Lectures: Alan J. Nussbaum

Free‑University, Berlin                                                          February 2002

(Seminar für Vergleichende und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft,

Institut für Indogermanistik und Orientalistik)

        Lectures: Jay Jasanoff

University of Erlangen                                                          March 2002

(Institut für Vergleichende Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft)

        Lectures: Craig Melchert

Free-University, Berlin                                                          August-September 2004

        (Indo-European Summer School)

        Lectures:    Alan J. Nussbaum, Elisabeth Rieken, Georges-Jean Pinault,

                             Michael Meier-Brügger and Christoph Koch

Fellowships and Awards:

September 2009 – Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (Harvard University)

September 2008 – Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (Harvard University)

June 2008 – Medal from the Government of St.-Petersburg and the St.-Petersburg Center of the
                Russian Academy of Sciences.

March 2008 – Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (Harvard University)

November 2006 — Award for Excellence from Friends and Alumni of Indo-European Studies
                (awarded for the paper “Indo-European *demh₂-: set or anit?” presented
                at the 18^th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference)

October 2006 — Academia Europaea prize and medal

June 2005 — Presidential Scholarship (Harvard University)

January 2005 — The President of Russian Federation Fellowship for graduate students

December 2003 — Medal of Russian Academy of Sciences
                    (awarded for a series of articles under the common title "Studies in Indo-European
                    Nominal Inflection"; on this occasion profiled in the university magazine
                    «St.-Petersburg State University» № 10, 2004)

November 2004 — Fellowship from the Foundation for Promotion of Research in Russia
                    (program “Best Graduate Students in the Russian Academy of Sciences”)

June 2003  — The best graduate of St.-Petersburg University, class 2003.

May 2003 — St.-Petersburg University School of Arts and Sciences first prize
                    (awarded for the paper "Lex Rix before nasals in Greek").

September 2002 — Vladimir Potanin prize.

January 2002 — Fellowship from Free-University, Berlin.

August 2000 — Svenska Institutet fellowship.

March 2000 — The President of Russian Federation Fellowship for college students.