Cassie Ward completed her degree programs this Spring 2022 semester, earning an M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and an M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She earned her B.A.s in History and Psychology from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL in 2018.

Cassie has engaged in research on the Americanization of Polish Immigrants for her History thesis at Southern Illinois University, as well as focused research on trauma responses and the psychology of serial murderers for her Psychology B.A. While completing her M.A., her research focused on queer experiences in Russia from the late Imperial period to the 1990s, with specific focus on the “Soviet Stonewall” event in St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1991. For her M.S., she conducted research on the inflexibility of Library of Congress Subject Headings, including the difficulties in updating subject headings that are slurs.

While Cassie’s future plans include living in a cottage in the woods with a large library, farm animals, and her dear kitten Anyanka, she currently plans on staying in the Champaign-Urbana area and pursuing employment.