Alexandra Shapiro

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Lecturer, Russian Flagship Program
Program Co-director, Study Russian in Armenia and Georgia Study Abroad

Prior to joining UGA’s Russian Flagship Program in 2019, Dr. Shapiro taught Russian and Composition for American Academic Communication at Penn State University. She served as an ESL instructor at Moscow State Linguistics University and various other institutions.

Dr. Shapiro currently teaches Russian Flagship courses for students of all levels of proficiency as well as non-Flagship courses. She is the co-director of UGA’s “Study Russian in Armenia and Georgia” program.

She has initiated a student-led outreach project with Elbert County High School in GA, which resulted in an ever-evolving website: World of Russian . Highlighting the areas and cultures where Russian is spoken outside of Russia.

Dr. Shapiro is also a Board member and Professional Development committee member of the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR). 


Pages featuring Dr. Alexandra Shapiro:
Research Interests:

Dr. Shapiro's fields of interest are Russian theater and cinematography, Intercultural Communication, Social Justice, Environmentalism, and Media literacy.

Dr. Shapiro earned her master’s degree in second language acquisition (specializing in English and French) and general linguistics at Moscow State Linguistics University in 2007. 

In 2016, she completed her dissertation in literature analyzing the concepts of Time, Space, and Memory in Vladimir Nabokov’s biographical prose of the American period. She has also authored a series of publications on Nabokov’s work.

“Teaching Critical Media Literacy in an Advanced Level Classroom Through the Eyes of Journalism as a Profession”. Special Issue of the Russian Language Journal on teaching media literacy in the Russian language classroom. The Russian Language Journal. Vol. 73, No.2 (2023) 

Articles Featuring Alexandra Shapiro

According to the 2024 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, released this week by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and U.S. Department of State, UGA ranks: 

The Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies is excited to announce a new Russian language study abroad program that will take place from June to July of 2024.