About

My path

My career has followed one question across two disciplines: how do economic conditions shape human wellbeing and development?

I began as an economist. After earning my Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Economics at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine with a dissertation on health and economic growth, I spent nearly a decade as an Associate Professor of Finance & Econometrics at the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” while working as a policy researcher and analyst. In those years I co-authored Ukraine’s National Competitiveness Reports in partnership with the World Economic Forum, contributed to the healthcare and education chapters of Ukraine’s National Program of Economic Reforms, and coordinated analytical work with the World Bank, WHO, and international research institutes.

That policy work kept returning me to a developmental insight: economic circumstances matter most in childhood, when they shape the trajectories that adult policy later struggles to correct. To study those processes directly, I came to the University of Pittsburgh, where I completed my Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology (with a minor in Quantitative Methodology) in 2026, working with Dr. Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal. My dissertation examined the long-term associations of childhood family wealth — disaggregated into assets and debts — with young adults’ outcomes.

Education

  • Ph.D., Developmental Psychology (minor: Quantitative Methodology) — University of Pittsburgh, 2026
  • M.S., Developmental Psychology — University of Pittsburgh, 2021
  • Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.), Economics — Institute of Demography and Social Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2009
  • M.A., Economics — Kyiv School of Economics, National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, 2006

Recognition

  • Advanced Achievement in the Teaching of Psychology Certificate and Program Award — University of Pittsburgh, 2023
  • Anna Margaret and Mary Sloan Predoctoral Fellowship — University of Pittsburgh, 2022–2023
  • Research and teaching fellowships from the Vienna Institute of International Economic Studies (wiiw), the Global Development Network, and the Open Society Institute