Curriculum Vitae
Academic Qualifications
2007 to present
PhD Candidate within the Volkswagen funded project “The Catholic Church and Religious Pluralism in Lithuania and Poland” at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany. (Maternity leave between 12/2010 and 10/2012).
2004-2006
Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Social Sciences, MA Studies in the Department of Sociology, Center for Social Anthropology (Kaunas, Lithuania). Title of MA thesis: “The Neopagan Religious Community ‘Vilkatlakai’: Reconstruction of an Ancient Baltic Lifestyle in the Context of Contemporary Lithuania”.
2000-2004
Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Social Sciences, BA Studies at the Department of Sociology (Kaunas, Lithuania). Title of BA thesis: “The Representation of Non-Traditional Religious Movements in Lithuanian Mass Media”.
Work Experience
2006-2007
Project Coordinator for “Open and Safe at Work” at the Social Research Center, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania).
2006-2007
Research Assistant in the project “Society and Lifestyles: Towards Enhancing Social Harmonisation through Knowledge of Subcultural Communities”. Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Humanities, Center for Cultural Studies (Kaunas, Lithuania).
06-09/2006
Member of an archeological expedition in the necropolis of pre-Christian graves in Marvelė (Kaunas). Employed by the Kaunas University of Technology, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Science (Lithuania).
09-12/2005
ERASMUS Scholarship Holder at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Anthropology (Denmark).
06-08/2005, 04-07/2006
Research Assistant (qualitative and quantitative data collection) in the project “Ways of Expressing Lithuanian National Identity: Social Memory, Cultural Continuance and Change under the Conditions of Globalisation”, Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Centre for Social Anthropology (Kaunas, Lithuania).
03-05/2003
Research Assistant (quantitative data collection). Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology (Kaunas, Lithuania).
Fieldwork Experience
04/2008-04/2009
Fieldwork on exchange practices among the Catholic laity, clergymen and the dead in southern Lithuania.
2003-2006
Various short-term fieldwork stays in religious communities in Lithuania (Community of the Franciscan Monastery, Jehovah Witnesses, and different neo-pagan communities).
Grants and Scholarships
2012
Department of Gender & Cultural Studies, University of Sydney. Travel grant for participation in the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Annual Conference, Sydney (Australia).
2007-2010
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. PhD Scholarship within the Volkswagen funded Project “The Catholic Church and Religious Pluralism in Lithuania and Poland”.
2005
Erasmus Scholarship for studies at the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen (Denmark).
Conference and Workshop Organizations
2010
Conference: Religious Hegemony and Religious Diversity in Eastern Europe: Postsocialism vis-à-vis the Longue Durée, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, (Halle/S., Germany); (co-organized with I. W.Schröder, K.Sekerdej and A.Pasieka). June 24-25.
2008
Workshop in the framework of the Volkswagen funded Project “The Catholic Church and Religious Pluralism in Lithuania and Poland”, with a thematic focus on Religious Pluralism. Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania); (co-organized with I.W.Schöder). June 18-21.
Professional Memberships
Since 2010
European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).
Further Qualifications
09/2010
Practical Introduction to Ethnographic Filming
IT-Training Software: MAXQDA; MS and Open Office
Languages
Lithuanian (native)
English (fluent)
German (fluent)
Russian (intermediate)