Nicole Harry, Ph.D.

Welcome! 

I am a historian, researcher, and educator specializing in Soviet and Eastern European history, with particular interests in religion, ideology, and political legitimacy during the Cold War.  My research focuses on the study of religion and political culture to offer new perspectives on Soviet society and Cold War-era Eastern Europe. 

My recent work examines the relationship between Catholic communities, Soviet state power, and transnational diplomacy in Soviet Lithuania during the “long 1970s,” while my current projects explore Cold War and post-cold War educational exchange between the Soviet Union, Russia, and America, as well as the influence of religion and international legitimacy regarding Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War. 

I have presented my work at conferences and workshops including the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), Canadian Association of Slavists, the Cold War Research Center at Corvinus University of Budapest, and the UNC–King’s College London Transatlantic Workshop. To complete this work, I have received the Fulbright U.S. Student Program Open/Study Research Award and the Title VIII Combined Research and Language Training Fellowship, and the Wilson Center Cold War Archival Research Fellowship for research in Lithuania. These opportunities allowed me to live long-term in both Russia and Lithuania, as well as travel much of Eastern Europe.

Alongside my independent academic work, I currently teach high school history at Gilman School in Baltimore, MD. Combining my love of research with my passion for teaching, I seek to make historical knowledge accessible and relevant beyond the academy. In this work, I emphasize that history is not just a set of facts to be learned, instead inviting others to think critically and collaboratively about the past. 

I earned both my Ph.D. and MA in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2026, 2022 respectively). I received my BA from Lafayette College, where I majored in History with a minor in Russian and Eastern European Studies.