Dr. Melissa Skye Chiovenda is an assistant professor of anthropology at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. Shehas been conducting research in Afghanistan since 2009. Her main research in Afghanistan concerned ethnic Hazara civil society movements and the transmission of cultural trauma. Her earlier research in Afghanistan concerned Pashtun women who were working with Western NGOs. She have a PhD from the University of Connecticut in anthropology, an MA from Georgetown University in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies with a Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Crises, and a BS in Russian Language and Literature from Georgetown University. Since 2016, she has been conducting research on the political identity of Afghan, mainly Hazara, refugees in Greece and Italy. I have also started projects concerning the Hazara genocide of the late 1800s, and sexual violence historically and currently experienced by Hazara women. Prior to working in academia, Dr. Chiovenda was a high school teacher in South Los Angeles. She also worked for United States exchange programs in Russia, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and spent a summer teaching children at an organization in Nablus, West Bank.
