By Sarah McPhee
The Ellison Center is pleased to announce that graduate alumnus Taylor Zajicek was awarded the ASEEES Graduate Student Essay Prize for an outstanding essay by a graduate student in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies for his paper “Modern Friendship: The ‘New Turkey’ and Soviet Cultural Diplomacy, 1933-1934”.
Taylor is currently a Fulbright English teacher in Turkey.
With over 3,000 members, the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies supports teaching, research, and publication relating to the study of the post-Soviet region through its Slavic Review, Annual Convention, book prizes, and organizational newsletter.
The ASEEES Annual Convention is an international forum for professionals, and graduate students, both domestic and international, to network and exchange new research. Over 2,000 individuals attend every year. Additionally, ASEEES recognizes outstanding scholarship in the field by awarding prizes to works of merit. ASEEES awards nine book prizes, a dissertation prize, and a graduate essay prize, of which Taylor was the recipient.
Taylor’s paper was also awarded the annual Daniel C. Waugh Prize for the best Ellison Center master’s thesis, submitted in 2014. Following graduation, Taylor served as a public diplomacy summer intern in the US Embassy to Uzbekistan and currently works as a Fulbright English teacher at Karabük University in Turkey.