She received her M.A. from the Herzen University, St. Petersburg, and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Prior to coming to Bard, she served as the director of the Information Resource Center of the U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg, and as deputy director the city’s Nabokov Museum. Her publications include the highly praised edition of Vladimir Nabokov’s Letters to Véra (trans. and ed., with Brian Boyd).