Valeriya Chekalina

Dr. Valeriya Chekalina earned her PhD in Philology from Moscow State University in 2003, where she conducted research in functional grammar under the supervision of Professor Maya Vsevolodova. She previously taught Russian as a foreign language at Moscow State University, working with undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate international students, and also taught courses for Russian students on functional approaches to grammar.

Her research focuses on functional and functional-communicative grammar and the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language. She is the author and co-author of more than 40 publications, including specialized textbooks such as Russian for Lawyers, a blended course for heritage speakers developed in collaboration with Ruhr University Bochum (Germany), and a book on Ukrainian prepositions. She is also a certified TORFL examiner and previously served as Deputy Director of the TORFL Testing Center at the Faculty of Philology at Moscow State University, where she was involved in test development and assessment. After relocating to Riga, Latvia, she worked in Russian language education and curriculum development and is currently a co-director of the Georgia Tech LBAT faculty-led Russian summer program in Riga.

At Georgia Tech, her more recent research explores modern and contemporary Russian poetry, with particular attention to minimalist and conceptual writing. Drawing on phenomenology, she studies how poetic form generates meaning through the reader’s lived, sensory experience of the text, and how rhythm, visual layout, silence, and modes of reading shape perception. Her teaching at Georgia Tech spans all levels of the Russian curriculum, from first-year language courses to advanced content-based classes, including Contemporary Russia and 19th-Century Russian Writers: Addicted to Heroines.

Outside of her academic work, she enjoys gardening and has a long-standing passion for growing roses.