Natalia Khanenko-Friesen

Natalia Khanenko-Friesen is a professor and Huculak Chair in Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, as well as CIUS Director, at the University of Alberta. A cultural anthropologist and expert in oral history, her current work focuses on contemporary Ukraine, the Ukrainian diaspora, Crimean Tatar studies, archives of Soviet repression, and digital humanities. Since 2022, Khanenko-Friesen has initiated and launched several international academic initiatives in support of Ukraine, including the Witnessing the War on Ukraine Summer Institute (since 2022), Translating Ukraine Summer Institute (since 2024), and The Meeting Point: Crimean Tatar and Indigenous Epistemologies Transnational Workshop (since 2025). A native of Kyiv, she is the author or co-author of several books and numerous other publications, including the 2018 Kobzar Award finalist Ukrainian Otherlands: Diaspora, Homeland and Folk Imagination in the Twentieth Century. Since 2023 she has served as the co-president of the Ukrainian Oral History Association.