Mikhail Strokan

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Ph. D. Student in Comparative Politics

Mikhail Strokan is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation, titled “Varieties of Post-Soviet Petrostates: Pathways to Mitigating the Resource Curse,” analyzes the trajectory of post-Soviet Russia’s energy politics from an interdisciplinary perspective, comparing it to the trajectories of other petrostates in post-Soviet Eurasia. His empirical research is based on extensive fieldwork conducted over several months in Russia, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus between 2020 and 2023. His dissertation research has been supported by several awards beyond the five-year fellowship, which includes the Teece Research Fellowship (2021), Dissertation Research Award (2022), and the highly coveted Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2023-2024) as well as a few smaller grants and awards. At Penn, Mikhail served as a TA and Head TA for multiple courses in 2018-2023, winning several awards along the way. In 2020, he won the Alvin Z. Rubinstein Award for Outstanding Teaching, and the following year he was named one of the finalists of Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching; and won the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. His works were published by Routledge, Cambridge University Press, Asian Affairs, and the Diplomat.

Prior to attending the University of Pennsylvania, Mikhail worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Mikhail holds an MA in Political Science from University of Pennsylvania (2019) and MA in International Relations from Syracuse University (2016). Read more about his research in Penn Today.