Research Fellows

To promote its academic research, the Diplomatische Akademie Wien - Vienna School of International Studies regularly appoints internationally recognised academics as Research Fellows. Appointments are made by the Director on the recommendation of the Study Commission.

Please find below more information on the DA's Research Fellows.

Current Research Fellows

Katrin EGGENBERGER (2026-28)

© privateDA Research Fellow from March 2026 to March 2028

Research area: International Relations

Curriculum vitae

  • Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Justice and Culture of the Principality of Liechtenstein
  • PhD in International Affairs and Political Economy, University of St. Gallen
  • Master in Public Administration, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
  • Master of Science and Bachelor of Business Administration, University of Liechtenstein
  • Maurice R. Greenberg Yale World Fellow, Yale University

Alexander ETKIND (2026-28)

© privateDA Research Fellow from March 2026 to March 2028

Research area: History and International Relations

Alexander joined the Central European University's Department of International Relations in 2022. He previously taught at the European University Institute at Florence (2013-2022), the University of Cambridge (2004-2013) and the European University at St Petersburg (1999-2004). Alexander defended his PhD in Russian cultural history in Helsinki (1998), and supervised more than 30 PhD students in Europe.

His current interests are the political aspects of the Anthropocene, global decarbonisation and security in Eastern Europe. In the past, he was also involved in memory studies, European intellectual history, empires and decolonisation and various aspects of Russian history. A Fellow of King’s College Cambridge, Etkind was the Leader of Memory at War: Cultural Dynamics in Poland, Russia and Ukraine, a European research project (2010-13). He is the author of Eros of the Impossible. The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia (Westview Press 1996); Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience (Polity Press 2011); Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied (Stanford University Press 2013); Roads not Taken. An Intellectual Biography of William C. Bullitt (Pittsburgh University Press 2017); and Nature’s Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources (Polity Press 2021). Alexander coedited Remembering Katyn (Polity 2012), Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (Palgrave 2013) and Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia (Routledge 2017). His most recent book, Russia against Modernity, was released by Polity in 2023.

Since 2024, Alexander Etkind is leading the Open Society Hub for the Politics of the Anthropocene at CEU.

More information is available at https://people.ceu.edu/alexander_etkind.

Bernd Christoph STRÖHM (2025-27)

© DA/Peter LechnerDA Research Fellow from July 2025 to July 2027

Research area: History

Former Research Fellows

Tatiana COUTTO (2024-26)

© privateDA Reserach Fellow from February 2024 to February 2026

Research area: International relations

Vanessa GAUTHIER VELA (2024)

© DA/Peter LechnerDA Research Fellow from February 2024 to October 2024

Research area: International relations

Dorit GEVA (2019-21)

Senior Research Associate from October 2019 to November 2021

Research area: Sociology and social anthropology

Emmanuel COMTE (2019-21)

© privateResearch Associate from July 2019 to July 2021

Research area: History