Roman Podkur received his Kandydat nauk degree in 1999 from Dnipropetrovsk State University and is an academic researcher at the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. During his three-month stay at Harvard (September–November 2007), he will research the topic “Role of the Soviet Secret Police in the History of Ukraine,” examining the secondary literature on the history of the USSR and Ukraine and researching archival documents and materials regarding the role of the KGB in the history of Ukraine.