Michaela Pohl received her Ph.D.in modern Russian history from Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana (1999). Her research focuses on the social history of the Soviet Union after Stalin, especially the Khrushchev period. Other research and teaching interests include the history of Kazakstan and Chechnya, diasporas in the borderlands of the former Soviet Union, youth and children in Russia and Europe, and Russian and Central European popular culture. Pohl is working on a book on the Virgin Lands campaign, a settlement drive that started under Nikita Khrushchev. It focuses on the interaction of various ethnic groups in the Akmola region of North Kazakstan. Other on-going projects include research on the cultural resistance in exile of the Chechen people (they were deported from the Caucasus to North Kazakstan in 1944). Among her publications is "'It Cannot be that Our Graves Will be Here:' The Survival of Chechen and Ingush Deportees in Kazakhstan, 1944-1957."
