The following Oregon State University faculty and staff have expertise related to ongoing situation in Ukraine and Russia and are willing to speak with journalists. Their specific expertise, and contact information, is listed below. For help with other OSU faculty experts, contact Sean Nealon, 541-737-0787, [email protected].

Sarah Henderson, 541-737-6236, [email protected]

Henderson is an associate professor of political science in Oregon State’s College of Liberal Arts. Her teaching and research interests focus on Russian and Eastern European politics, democratization movements and the rise of authoritarianism. Specifically, she has written about Putin’s Russia, civil society and foreign aid in post-Soviet Russia, and spent several years in Russia and traveled to Ukraine to work with Ukrainian teachers. She can speak to: 

  • Russian politics and political trends and developments in post-communist countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
  • Prodemocracy movements and trends around the world.
  • The dynamics of authoritarian rule in regimes around the world.
  • The decline of democracy in countries around the world.

Philipp Kneis, 541-737-1325, [email protected]

Kneis is an instructor in political science at Oregon State. He has been a long-term member of the university’s Holocaust Memorial Week planning committee. His areas of teaching and research are political and cultural theory, history, American politics, politics of media, politics of the European Union, human rights and genocide. He grew up in former communist East Germany. He has been writing about the war in Ukraine on his blog: erraticattempts.com. He can speak to:

  • Experience living in a totalitarian system.
  • Political extremism and propaganda.
  • Genocide, Holocaust and discrimination.
  • Soviet, Russian, European and German politics.
  • Cultural attitudes towards Russia and Ukraine in the West.
  • Theory and practice of democracy.
  • Global politics and international relations.

David Bernell, 541-737-6281, [email protected]

David Bernell is an associate professor of political science in OSU’s College of Liberal Arts. His teaching and research interests focus on energy policy, international relations and foreign policy, and nuclear nonproliferation. He can speak to: 

  • International conflict and the impact on energy supplies and prices
  • US foreign policy
  • US energy policy
  • Nuclear weapons and proliferation

Jamon Van Den Hoek, 541-737-1229, [email protected]

Van Den Hoek is an associate professor of geography and geospatial science in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science at Oregon State. His research uses global satellite imagery and geospatial data to learn about short- and long-term effects of climate change, land use and violent conflict on people and landscapes. He and colleagues have several efforts ongoing to map the effects of the Ukraine war on cities and the environment. He has been featured in Fast Company, The Atlantic and other media outlets.Van Den Hoek can speak to:

  • Monitoring armed conflicts using satellite imagery.
  • The blind spots that satellite imagery may not show.
  • Relationships between forced displacement, land use change due to conflict and climate change vulnerability.

Kathryn Higley, 541-737-0675, [email protected]

Higley is a professor in the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the interim director of the Center for Quantitative Life Sciences at Oregon State. She can speak on the risks and effects of radiation, including:

  • How radiation affects people and the environment.
  • How radioactive contamination moves from place to place.
  • Fallout and other impacts of nuclear weapons.

Camille Palmer, 541-737-7065, [email protected]

Camille Palmer is an associate professor in the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering and works closely with national laboratories to develop concepts and approaches that support international nuclear nonproliferation. She can discuss the physics, history and status of the global nuclear weapons inventory, including:

  • The effectiveness of international nuclear treaties.
  • The impact of a nuclear exchange.
  • The security and safeguards of nuclear materials throughout the fuel cycle.

Todd Palmer, 541-737-7064, [email protected]

Todd Palmer is a professor in the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering. He can speak on:

  • The science of nuclear fission reactors and nuclear weapons.
  • How Russian nuclear reactors are similar to/different from U.S. nuclear reactors.

Linda M. Richards, 541-740-3341, [email protected]

Richards has a doctorate in history of science and teaches full-time in OSU's School of History, Philosophy and Religion. Her areas of expertise include:

  • The history of radiation regulation and affected communities.
  • Nuclear history from the local (Oregon) to global level.
  • How nuclear history intersects with human rights, environmental justice and nonviolence.