Kimberly's research explores ideas and understandings of race, Blackness, ethnicity, and nationality policy in the Soviet Union and East Germany.
Kimberly is a subject matter expert on foreign policy and relations between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. Her public writing analyzes issues of race, foreign policy, history, and culture in the United States, Russia, and Ukraine. Her writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, the Moscow Times, New Lines Magazine, and the Kennan Institute's Russia File. She has also become a regular commentator on Ukraine and Russia in American and international media outlets such as AP, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBC, and BBC.
She is a regular guest lecturer and presenter at universities, think tanks, and cultural institutions. For media inquiries, please get in touch with her via her website. She is also booking talks and guest lectures for Fall 2025.
Advisor: Dr. Benjamin Nathans
Photo Credit: Allison L. Evans
B.A. History, Swarthmore College, 2012
M.A. Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, Harvard University, 2014
M.A. History, University of Pennsylvania, 2022
- Teaching Assistant of the Year, 2022
- NESEEES Graduate Essay Prize, 2022
- REEEC Summer Research Laboratory Associate, 2022
Soviet nationality policy
Race and ethnicity in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, Russia, Ukraine, and East Germany
African and African Diasporic racial identity and experience in the USSR and East Germany
Contemporary Russo-Ukrainian relations
Teaching Assistant:
History of American Law since 1877 (Tani)
World War I (Holquist)
East Asian Diplomacy (Dickinson)
The Soviet Century (Nathans)
"Roundtable: Histories of Race in Europe and Questions of Knowledge Production." European History Quarterly, 55.2 (2025), 173-218. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02656914251328511.
"Blackness in the Red Land: African Americans and Racial Identity in the “Colourless” Soviet Union" in Red Migrations: Transnational Mobility and Leftist Culture after 1917, edited by Philip Gleissner and Bradley A. Gorski, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2024, pp. 319-342. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487543907-013.
Review of "Racism in Modern Russia: From the Romanovs to Putin" Ab Imperio 3/2022: 377-380.
"Ukraine's Story Can Find Listeners in Africa." Foreign Policy. August 2022.
"How I contribute to the Ukrainian War Effort." Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. August 2022.
"Celebrity Attention on Ukraine." Inkstick Media. August 2022.
"Europe Can't Afford Vacillation on Ukraine." Foreign Policy. July 2022.
"Ice Cream Diplomacy." Inkstick Media. February 2022.
“Not Your Meme: Kazakhstan in the Western Imagination.” Lossi36. January 2022.
"Afro-Ukrainian Wrestler Zhan Beleniuk Won Olympic Gold but can't Escape Racism." First and Pen. August 2021.
"Andrea Lee's 'Russian Journal' A Tapestry of the Late Soviet Era." Kennan Institute's Russia File. February 2021.
"The Ties That Bind: Black Lives Matter, Ukraine's Euromaidan, and the Realities of European Integration." Krytyka (Ukraine). June 2020. (also available in Ukrainian)
"The Curious Case of Russian Lives Matter." Foreign Policy. July 11, 2020.
"A Voice from the Slavic Studies Edge: On Being a Black Woman in the Field." ASEEES NEWSNET August 2020, vol. 60 no.4
"Yelena Khanga, Belonging, and Blackness in Russia." New York University Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia. November 6, 2020.
2022-2023 SASGov History Department Representative
UPenn Fontaine Society
Committee for the Advocacy of Diversity & Inclusion, Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
Communications Advisory Committee Member, Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
American Historical Association
Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN)
Board of Directors, Graduate Student Representative (2021-2023), Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS)
Book Review Co-Editor, H-Net Ukraine