We proudly announce that Oleksandra Matviichuk, a human rights defender and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, has joined the KSE International Academic Board.

Oleksandra leads the Center for Civil Liberties and coordinates the “Euromaidan SOS” initiative, created during the Revolution of Dignity to protect activists from persecution. Since 2014, her team has documented war crimes by the Russian Federation in occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Following the full-scale invasion, she has continued to engage in global advocacy, raising awareness of human rights violations and fundraising for essential Ukrainian initiatives.

Her efforts have earned her numerous prestigious awards, including the Vasyl Stus Prize, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and the Defender of Democracy Award. She has also received the U.S. State Department’s “International Woman of Courage” award and was named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2022. In 2023, Oleksandra Matviichuk won the KSE Foundation’s Talents for Ukraine grant program. 

“Education during the war is not only a long-term investment in building democracy but also an act of resistance against Russian aggression. Russia wants to deprive Ukrainian youth of a future, and we cannot allow this. Therefore, I am pleased to join the International Academic Board of KSE and contribute where possible,” said Oleksandra Matviichuk.

In 2024, alongside Oleksandra Matviichuk, Maryna Viazovska and Serhii Plokhii also joined the KSE International Academic Board.

“With these distinguished additions, the International Academic Board is expanding its focus beyond traditional economics to support KSE’s growth in other key academic fields, including history, mathematics, and law. All members of the board are committed to helping KSE realize its full potential as a leading center of education and research for Ukraine and the world,” said Roger Myerson, Chair of the KSE International Academic Board and 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics.

Maryna Viazovska is a Ukrainian mathematician and professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). She was awarded the 2022 Fields Medal for her solution to the sphere-packing problem in eight-dimensional space—a longstanding challenge in geometry. Her groundbreaking work has made a significant contribution to contemporary mathematics and geometry. Currently, she leads the EPFL Number Theory Chair and continues her research in geometric problems and Fourier analysis.

Serhii Plokhii is the Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard and one of the world’s leading experts on the history of Ukraine and Eastern Europe. His bestsellers include The Gates of Europe, The Last Empire, The Cossack Myth, Yalta: The Price of Peace, and The Russo-Ukrainian War, which was listed among The Telegraph’s 50 best books of 2023.

The updated members of the KSE International Academic Board include:

• Roger Myerson — Nobel Laureate in Economics (2007), Professor at the University of Chicago (Chair of the Board);

• Dmytro Holod — Associate Dean at Stony Brook College of Business, State University of New York; KSE 2000 graduate;

• Charles Becker — Associate Chair, Economics Department, Duke University;

• Michael Burda — Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Humboldt University of Berlin;

• Yuriy Gorodnichenko — Former Chairman of the KSE IAB, Quantedge Presidential Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley; KSE 2001 graduate;

• Paul Gregory — Professor, University of Houston;

• Viktoria Hnatkovska — Associate Professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver; KSE 2000 graduate;

• Tymofiy Mylovanov — President of KSE, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh, former Minister of Economic Development, Trade, and Agriculture of Ukraine (2019-20); KSE 1999 graduate;

• Anna Nagurney — Eugene M. Isenberg Chair in Integrative Studies, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst;

• Serhii Plokhii — Professor at Harvard University, Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard;

• Konstantin Sonin — Professor, University of Chicago;

• Maryna Viazovska — Ukrainian mathematician, Professor at EPFL, Fields Medal laureate;

•  Oleksandra Matviichuk — Human rights defender and Chair of the Center for Civil Liberties, recipient of Ukraine’s first Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.