Dr Ola Onuch

Biography

Biographic Sketch: Dr. Onuch (DPhil Oxford 2010) is a Senior Lecturer [Associate Professor] in Politics. She joined the University of Manchester in 2014, after holding posts at the University of Toronto (2010-2011), University of Oxford (2011-2014) and Harvard University (2013-2014). She is an Associate of Nuffield College (Oxford) and The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Onuch was also a Research Fellow at the Davis Center (Harvard) in 2017.

Onuch’s comparative study of protest (elections, migration & identity) in Eastern Europe and Latin America has made her a leading expert in Ukrainian and Argentine politics specifically, but also in inter-regional comparative analysis. Her book “Mapping Mass Mobilizations” (2014, reviewed in Europe-Asia Studies), explores the processes leading up to mass protest engagement in Ukraine (2004) and Argentina (2001). She is the author of several scholarly articles (in Journal of Democracy, Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, Post-Soviet Affairs, GeoPolitics among other journals), book chapters, and policy briefs. 

Her research regularly appears in leading media outlets (The Washington Post, The Times, The Guardian, BBC, ITV, Al Jazeera, AFP, among others). Onuch’s research on protest politics in Ukraine has resulted in her consulting policymakers in Canada, Ukraine, the UK and US. Her research received praise and awards placing her on the map as one of the foremost experts on protests and activism in Ukraine.

Onuch is currently Principle Investigator (ESRC) of MOBILISE “Determinants of ‘Mobilisation’ at Home and Abroad: Analysing the Micro- Foundations of Out-Migration & Mass Protest”. A three year project (2018-2021) funded through the Open Research Area (ORA) Scheme with direct support of the ESRC in the UK, the DFG in Germany, the ANR in France and the NWO in the Netherlands (€2,002,039 total [£595,369 to UoM]).

Onuch’s is Co-PI (with Hale, Colton, Kravets) of a National Science Foundation funded study of Ukrainian political opinion. In 2014 Onuch was awarded (did not take up) the Leverhulme EC Fellowship for exceptional and promising young scholars. Onuch was Principle Investigator of the Ukrainian Protest Project: Comparative Protest Politics funded the British Academy.

Previously she held: the Shklar Research Fellowship at HURI, Harvard; the Newton Prize Fellowship, at Nuffield College, Oxford; The Petro Jacyk Prize Fellowship, at CERES, Toronto; and a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (mentored by Enrique Peruzzotti and Guillermo O’Donnell).

Media availability: Yes (written and spoken: English, Ukrainian, Polish, Spanish, and French).