Thomas E. Bird

Associate Professor
PhD Cand., Princeton University, Dr. Phil., Ukrainian Free University
Degrees from Syracuse University, Middlebury College, and Princeton University
19th- and 20th-century Russian and Belarusan literature

Thomas Bird teaches undergraduate courses in Russian language and literature, covering the spectrum from Medieval to post-Soviet writing, Russian Women Writers, Byzantium and the Slavs, and Russian Culture and Thought.
 
Bird has supervised the Russian Study Abroad Program in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev.
 
At Queens Colege Thomas Bird has served as Acting Chair of the Slavic Department, Liaison for the Dobro Slovo Society  (the National Slavic Honor Society), Deputy Chair of the European Languages/Literatures Department, member of the Executive Committee of the College's Academic Senate, member of the Executive Committee of the University Faculty Senate, President and Historian of Sigma Chapter, Phi Beta Kappa, Director of the Scholars Program, and Coordinator of the Spring Slavic Lecture Series.
 
Thomas Bird has received the Presidential Teaching Award and has served on the faculty of three summer seminars in the field of Russian studies sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.  He is currently Chair of the Christian Gauss Literary Award Coommittee, sponsored by the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa.

Svetlana V. Cheloukhina

Assistant Professor, Coordinator of Russian program

PhD, University of Toronto, 2000
MA, University of Toronto, 1995
Diploma in Russian Language & Literature, and English Language & Literature, Rostov State Pedagogical University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, 1983

Research and Teaching Interests: 19th-20th-century Russian literature, Avant-garde, Acmeism, regional studies, religion, ethnicity, and culture in the republics of North Caucasus, Russia. Svetlana Cheloukhina is the author of The Poetic Universe of Nikolai Zabolotsky (2006), and of the articles, reviews and conference presentations on Mikhail Zenkevich, Vladimir Narbut, Nikolai Zabolotsky; the Alans and the Upper Kuban Cossacks of Karachaevo-Cherkesiia. She received grants and awards from The Takhmysian Foundation, and from Sloan, Mellon and CUNY Research Foundations. At Queens, she teaches courses in Russian language, literature, culture, and Russian and East European cinema, both in classroom and on-line. Previously, she taught at the Southern Federal University, Russia, and the University of Toronto, and as a Visiting faculty at the universities of Germany, and UNC-Chapel Hill, USA. In Toronto, she also founded an educational company which had over fifty graduates in Russian studies. In Rostov, she supervised Russian programs for international students and coordinated American-Russian student exchanges.