Aleksandra Kurlenkova is a social scientist interested in body, technologies, and disability. Trained as a medical anthropologist at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow (2013), she studied sensory practices and assistive technologies used by blind and low-vision people in everyday interactions at several Russian rehab centers. In 2015-2016, Aleksandra gained a Master's degree in Sociology from Shaninka.
Since 2018, Aleksandra is a PhD student at the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication (New York University). She is now studying organization of aided / assisted communication using Ethnography and Conversation Analysis. In her PhD dissertation she will look at how people with speech impairments and their conversational partners deploy communicators (a phone app or laptop program) or eye-trackers to build meaning together.
Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies