“Ever since the Cold War, museums have helped to bridge the gap between Russia and the US. They have been big players in cultural diplomacy and maybe don’t receive the credit they deserve.”
Teofila Cruz-Uribe is a second-year master’s student in both International Studies at the Jackson School’s Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies and the University of Washington’s Museology program and a recipient of the Foreign Language & Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship for 2016-2017. Cruz-Uribe is taking advantage of one of the UW’s concurrent degree programs to specialize in both fields so she can follow her passion for Russian history and museums. While a master’s program typically takes two years, a concurrent program allows graduate students to work on two master’s degrees at once, and most students complete them both within three years.
Before studying at UW, Cruz-Uribe spent four years teaching English in Russia and touring the museums of Moscow. The Ellison Center caught up with Cruz-Uribe to talk about her unique degree and to learn how her background informed her educational and career goals.
