Nazerke Mukhlissova is a History PhD student at Yale University, where she focuses on the political history of the Soviet Union, Eastern European, and Central Asian states. Particularly, she is interested in intellectual history, nation and tradition building. Nazerke received a Bachelor’s degree from Nazarbayev University with a double major in History and Political Science. She has a Master’s Degree in European and Eurasian studies from Yale, as a result of which she wrote a thesis exploring the construction of Early Soviet Republics in Central Asia.