We are a team of researchers and teachers from the Institute for Statistics and Econometrics at Kiel University and the Faculty of Economics at Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University.
Anna Titova
Anna is the heart and brain of this project. She has a long history of opposing Putin’s Russia and patriarchy more generally. She needed just a second to realize that large parts of the German left betrayed her ideals after the full-scale Russian invasion to Ukraine. So she started to act. She immediately got involved at all levels to support the Ukrainian people, helping incoming refugees with German bureaucracy (that’s a lot), assisting Ukrainian students at Kiel University, and co-organizing public demonstrations. In the project, she developed – together with Tetiana – the core teaching concepts, assumed responsible for everything nobody else wanted to do and kept contact, across all languages, with every team member and beyond. Above all, she’s the one to spend comfort and encouragement to her fellows whenever needed. She does not neglect her job either. At Kiel University, she heads the Interdisciplinary Center of Statistics she co-founded with Kai, and she teaches statistics and econometrics with heart and soul. (Photo: © Anna Titova)
Tetiana Skibina
Tetiana came to Kiel University without ever having imagined to do so. She had just started as Associate Professor at Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University and looked forward to an academic career in Ukraine when Russia thwarted her plans. Starting with a scholarship at Kiel University, she teamed up with Anna and Kai to get the project going and make plans for a European future of her University. For obvious reasons, she is responsible to manage the Kherson side of the project, bring in the Ukrainian expertise and perspective, and keep contact to everyone involved there. But she also learns a lot about Germany. Meanwhile, she even knows how to send 70 laptops from Germany to Ukraine, an experience she would have loved to miss in her life (by the way, the final answer is simple: ask a Ukrainian logistics company). In the morning, she typically is the first person at Kiel’s Institute for Statistics and Econometrics as she teaches online lectures for her home University starting at 8 am Ukrainian time – which is 7 am German time. (Photo: © Tetiana Skibina)
Kai Carstensen
Kai started the project when he – at that time being Dean of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences of Kiel University – announced two Faculty scholarships for Ukrainian scholars soon after the full-scale Russian invasion to Ukraine and Tetiana became one of the scholarship holders. Quickly they decided to initiate a support project for students and teachers of Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University who needed to flee Russian occupation to Kropyvnytskyi city and all other parts of Ukraine and Europe. Since then, Kai acts as the project head which involves writing funding applications, being in touch with the administration and stepping in whenever things do not work out as planned – and that is more often than he imagined. Whenever he is not discussing the fastest way for a money transfer to Ukraine or its most efficient implementation in Kiel University’s accounting system, he works as a Professor of Econometrics at the Institute for Statistics and Econometrics. Until today, he feels a bit uneasy being called an activist but Anna told him this is actually a compliment. (Photo: © Arne Gloy, City of Kiel)
Viktoriia Krykunova
Viktoriia is the Dean of the Faculty of Economics at Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University. She acts as co-head of the project and takes over the administrative work at her University. Being a Professor of Economics, she also teaches some courses supported by our program and currently prepares for the launch of our digital Certificate in Quantitative Analysis for Business, Economics and Public Administration. Besides this, she performs the usual duties of a dean which is a hard task in times of war. Together with Prof. Viktoriia Hranovska, PhD, the Vice-Rector of Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University, she visited Kiel in May 2023 and presented the City of Kherson and her University to the Mayor of Kiel and the President of Kiel University. (Photo: © Arne Gloy, City of Kiel)
