Dr Iryna Skubii is the inaugural Mykola Zerov Fellow in Ukrainian Studies and the Senior Research Fellow at the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. Dr Skubii is also a researcher with the Ukrainian History Global Initiative and serves as President of the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand.

Her research examines the history of consumption, materialities, and human–environmental relationships during the Soviet famines in Ukraine, as well as Soviet social and economic history more broadly, with particular attention to times of crisis. Her current research explores the global history of sunflowers as an agricultural commodity and cultural symbol of Ukraine.

She earned a PhD in History from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, and a Candidate of Science Degree in History from V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine). She has taught in Ukraine and Canada and held visiting research positions in Germany, Poland, Austria, and Canada.

Shei is the author of two monographs: Famine in Soviet Ukraine: Ecology, Materiality, and Memories of Survival (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2027) and Trade in Kharkiv in the Years of the NEP: Economy and Everyday Life [Torhivlia v Kharkovi v roky NEPu (1921–1929): ekonomika ta povsiakdennist’] (Kharkiv: Rarytety Ukrainy, 2017). She is currently completing two further book projects: Holodomor: The 1932–1933 Famine in Ukraine, co-authored with Dr Daria Mattingly and forthcoming with Cambridge University Press (Elements in Post-Soviet History series, edited by Mark Edele and Rebecca Friedman); and a monograph on consumption and material culture in early Soviet Ukraine.

In 2025, she was awarded the American Association for Ukrainian Studies prize for the best article in Ukrainian studies, recognizing her research on food waste and survival practices during the Soviet famines in Ukraine. Her doctoral thesis received the 2024 PhD Dissertation Prize at Queen’s University, Kingston, and was a finalist for the 2025 Philippa Hetherington Prize (Australian Historical Association) and the Tallinn Dissertation Prize (European Society for Environmental History).

Dr Skubii provides expert commentary on famine, food security, environmental history, the decolonisation of Ukrainian and Soviet studies, contemporary Ukrainian politics, and Russia’s war against Ukraine, including its environmental and societal consequences. She is regularly invited to provide expert analysis and commentary for ABC News, BBC News, SBS News, and SBS Ukrainian, and her public writing has appeared in Inside Story, The Interpreter at the Lowy Institute, Griffith Review, The Conversation, and Australian Outlook. For articles, interviews, and commentary, see Media page.

Selected Academic Appointments

• Inaugural Mykola Zerov Fellow in Ukrainian Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia
• Research Fellow, Ukrainian History Global Initiative
• Stuart Ramsay Tompkins Visiting Professor, University of Alberta, Canada
• Petro Jacyk Visiting Scholar, Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, and the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, Canada
• Visiting Fellow, German-Ukrainian Commission of Historians, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
• Postdoctoral Fellow, German Historical Institute Warsaw, Poland
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna, Austria
• Associate Professor, Petro Vasylenko Kharkiv National Technical University of Agriculture (now State Biotechnological University), Kharkiv, Ukraine

A full CV is available upon request.

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