Sociologist and political scientist, has been heading the CISR e.V. since its creation as the CEO of the organization. She is involved in the development and realization of numerous projects. Elena specializes in the organizational structure of NGOs and is a coach and trainer in the area of team development, social startups, analysis, and consultation of internal organizational processes as well as presentation and moderating skills.

Elena studied sociology at the St. Petersburg State University for Marine Technology and finished her doctorate in political science at the University of Mannheim, regarding „Conscription and Citizenship Crises within Russia: Strategies of drafting and of refusal". Up until March 2017, she was the project manager for various projects and programs at the DRA e.V. Her first sociological experiences were gathered at the Centre for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg.

Sergey Rumyansev studied sociology at the State University of Baku. 2003-2014 researcher and scientist at the Institute for Philosophy, Sociology, and Law at the Academy of Science in Azerbaijan. 2010- 2012 postdoctoral fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation at the Institute of European Ethnology HU Berlin. He has been a Member of the Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation (Washington/Tbilisi) since 2012. 2014-2015 visiting professor at the Georg-Eckert-Institute for International Teaching and Learning Media (Braunschweig). His scientific interests concentrate on conflicts, nationalism, politics of history and remembrance, urban anthropology, migration, and diasporas. He has written over 50 scientific publications. As a publicist and editor, he works with a diverse array of media platforms, as well as analytical publishing houses. He has been a permanent editor of caucususedition.net since 2015. Furthermore, he has been a board member of the CISR e.V. Berlin since 2015, managing the project „Mass media and Conflict Transformations."

Sevil Huseynova studied law at the State University of Baku. She has been active in diverse sociological projects in the post-Soviet space, as well as in Germany, since 2007. 2007-2010 representative of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation in Azerbaijan. Ph.D. in the area of Ethnology at the Humboldt University to Berlin. She is the author of over 50 scientific publications. She has been a member of the CISR e.V. since 2015 and manages numerous projects for the organization. Her scientific interests are urban anthropology, conflicts, and migration.

Marit studied sociology, political science, and eastern European studies in Rostock, St. Petersburg, Potsdam and Berlin. She has been managing projects at MEMORIAL Germany in the name of memory politics in the post-Soviet space and Germany since 2015. In her doctorate "Arrived and integrated? Coping strategies during the process of migration" (2017) she examined strategies and courses of action for Chechen refugees in Germany. She worked as a translator at the Treatment Center for Torture Victims from 2003-2011. Until 2014, she managed a model project in the area of prenatal diagnostics (EKFUL), and thereafter headed the scientific accompanying research for a project centering around vocational orientation for students in Neukölln (AWO). She participated in the international monitoring of human rights in Eastern Ukraine in the years 2015 and 2016. She is currently conducting research on the identity of the second generation of deported Russian-Germans, as well as to the memories of children of german Gulag prisoners. She has been a member of the CISR Berlin since 2018.

Born and raised in the North Ural in a Russia Germans family. Artist, curator, contemporary art researcher. Studied philology at South Ural State University and theatre arts at Chelyabinsk Academy of Culture and Art. Attended a course at the Institute of Contemporary Art Baza in Moscow. Founder and curator of the educational platform Kultzavod at the OkNo Contemporary Art Gallery in Chelyabinsk. Author of a course of lectures on twentieth-century art. One of the first residents of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art Studios. Participant in exhibitions in Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Moscow, New York.
Research and art interests:
performative practices, gender and queer studies, intercultural communication, Russia Germans in Russia and abroad.

Anastasia Puschkarewa has been implementing various non-formal educational, cultural and exchange projects between Eastern Europe and Germany/Western Europe since 2007. Since 2019, she has been working for CISR e.V. and coordinating civil society projects to support, train and network urban initiatives, activists, artists and media makers, supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, the EU Erasmus+ programme, the European Solidarity Corps, the EVZ Foundation, etc.
She studied German language and literature at the Pedagogical University in Omsk, Russia. As part of her interdisciplinary Master's degree in East-West-Studies at the University of Regensburg, she explored questions of European integration, intercultural relations as well as political cultures and civil societies in Central, (South)Eastern and Western Europe.

Coordinator and initiator of projects on the development of urban grassroots activism and local communities in Russia. She is working with participatory practices in urban space and with approaches of tactical urbanism and placemaking. Organiser of informal events and urban festivals.
Since 2018 Valeria has coordinated international programmes Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps (ESC), as well as projects aimed at the development of civil society at Bridge it.
She studied International Relations and European Studies in St. Petersburg State University and Political Science in FSU Jena. Currently she is a master student of the Historical Urban Studies programme at the Technical University of Berlin.
Since October 2021 Valeria has been working at CISR e.V. as a project coordinator.

Lilia Voronkova is a social anthropologist, and a curator. She has been working in the Center for Independent Social Research (CISR, St.-Petersburg, Russia) since 2003 as a researcher, and since 2011 as a producer of art-social science projects (leading projects and curating exhibitions). In 2010 she received a Bundeschancellor scholarship by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and in 2018 became a CEC ArtsLink Arts Leadership Fellow for Contemporary Art curators (in New York, USA). She is a participant and coordinator of more than 20 academic and applied research projects and of 30 interdisciplinary and artistic projects. Now she works in interdisciplinary projects on urban art and urban research, organizes and manages non-formal educational and exchange programs for urban activists and artists. Since 2016 she has been working as an expert at CISR e.V. Berlin.

Oleg Pachenkov is a sociologist and urbanist, specialist in the fields of sociology and anthropology of the city. He received his Doctor degree (Candidate of Science in sociology) at sociology department of St.-Petersburg State University in 2009. Now he is a projects leader of the Center UP (Urbanism & Participation) and director of the CO-URBANISM educational program at the European University at St. Petersburg. In 2005 he received a Bundeschancellor scholarship by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is a participant and coordinator of more than 50 academic and applied research projects, author of over 40 publications in Russian and English. In addition to conducting academic and applied research, he acts as an advisor on urban development and urban processes to businesses and civic initiatives. Since 2016 he has been working as an expert at CISR e.V. in Berlin in the projects of horizontal education and training for the civil society in post-socialist countries.

Facilitator, producer of urban, cultural projects and educational programs.

Until February 2022 his main activity was based in Ulyanovsk, where he led a youth NGO and served as Advisor to the Mayor of Ulyanovsk on Culture and Youth. From 2019 to 2022 he was the Night Mayor of Ulyanovsk and with his team developed the city's nighttime cultural life. In 2021, together with like-minded people, he initiated participatory landscaping of 1.1 km of the bank of the Volga River together with the citizens. Since 2020 supervises the youth team in the village of Novospasskoye, where they create an art space in the hangar of the old grocery market.

Pasha is a member of the Association of Russian Trainers "ARTa", a member of the International Pool of Facilitators of Theodor Heuss College, a member of MitOst e.V., an alumnus of Robert Bosch Foundation projects.

He has been working with CISR since 2021. Since March 2022 she has been working in the Berlin office as a participant of the European Solidarity Corps, acting as project coordinator.

He was the project coordinator of the Congress of Antiwar Initiatives in Berlin on December 3-4, 2022 (website - https://antiwar.in/).

Arshinova Sonya is a producer leading education, culture, and entertainment projects.

Before the Russian invasion, as a public program director, Sonya line-managed large teams and produced massive interdisciplinary outreach programs for the Institute of Media, Architecture, and Design Strelka in Moscow.

After the invasion, she started working as a curator for the evacuation department at an NGO called Helping to Leave, which assists Ukrainians in evacuating from areas of military conflict. While building internal processes and external partnerships with international organizations for the evacuation department, Sonya formed the European adaptation department, which helps evacuated people from Ukraine get help in a new country of residence from scratch.

Sonya has a Bachelor's degree in Arts and Humanities from the Russian State Humanitarian University and a Master's degree in Cultural Studies from HSE University. She focused her research on the construction of identity in the digital space.

Since February 2023, she has been doing voluntary service at CISR e. V as part of the European Solidarity Corps Program.