Caress Schenk is an Associate Professor of political science at Nazarbayev University (Astana, Kazakhstan) with teaching and research expertise in the politics of immigration and national identity in Eurasia. Her new book, published with the University of Toronto Press, is called Why Control Immigration? Strategic Uses of Migration Management in Russia. Current and previous research has been funded by the American Councils for International Education, Nazarbayev University and the Fulbright Scholar Program and has been published in Demokratizatisya, Europe-Asia Studies, and Nationalities Papers, and in edited volumes published by Edinburgh University Press and Oxford University Press. Dr. Schenk is a member of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia).

Prof. Schenk also has book chapters and articles published in The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises, Russia Before and After Crimea: Nationalism and Identity 2010-2017 (Edinburgh University Press), Demokratizatisya, Europe-Asia Studies, and Nationalities Papers. Prof. Schenk’s research has looked at federal vs. regional-level management of migration in Russia, government and civil society responses to migration, migration agency and rights related to corruption and informal practices, labor migration in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union, and how migration control demonstrates state capacity. Prof. Schenk has also worked on INGO contract projects related to human trafficking and labor slavery in Russia and Kazakhstan.