Elena Zhirukhina

Elena Zhirukhina joined the ITN project as an early stage researcher. She graduated in 2009 from the Southern Federal University in Russia having majored in political science and education. She got her first experience in scientific work in the Institute of Social-Economic and Humanitarian Research of the Southern Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Science (ISEHR SSC RAS) where she worked for three years. She was responsible for media monitoring, data collection, analytics, mapping, and writing of reports and policy papers. She was involved as researcher in the series of projects dedicated to examining violence happening in the Northern Caucasus of the Russian Federation from different perspectives, including collection and analysis of data reflecting crimes of a terrorist nature in Russia. Since October 2013 she has been Marie Curie Fellow in the School of International Relations of the University of St Andrews working on her Ph.D. project “State-society conflict: extremism issue in the North Caucasus of the Russian Federation”, focusing on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism strategies of the state.