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Dr. Alisa Demina, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Archaeology of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, has received a five-year Wellcome Early-Career Award

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Published on Wednesday, 12 November 2025 08:34

Dr. Alisa Demina, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Archaeology of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, has received a five-year Wellcome Early-Career Award.

This funding will support the implementation of her interdisciplinary research project “Memory and Materiality in Conflict Landscapes: Psychological Impact of Spontaneous Memorials in the Russian-Ukrainian War.” The project combines approaches from conflict archaeology, public archaeology, oral history, and psychology. Over several years, the research team will study sites of memory, particularly spontaneous memorials, documenting their transformation and conducting interviews with witnesses and participants in their creation.

“As an archaeologist, I am interested in the relationship between material culture and human memory, which is often difficult to study through past remains alone. It is especially valuable to document “ephemeral” memorials that change quickly and may soon disappear entirely. I am very grateful to the Wellcome Trust for this opportunity and for supporting Ukrainian researchers,” — says Alisa Demina.

The project aims to develop a methodology for studying such memorials and to explore their potential psychological impact on the well-being of individuals and communities.

It builds on the project “War Spoke to Us: Loudly through Explosions and Quietly through Things,” launched in 2024 in collaboration with the University of Glasgow and Professor Tony Pollard.

“An important idea that emerged in the previous project and which we aim to develop further is the involvement of a broad community of people in co-creating the research.”

As part of the grant, the team will create a digital platform for collecting and presenting memorial sites, as well as work directly with local communities across different regions of Ukraine.

The project team includes Diana Nahirna (PhD student, Department of Psychology), Oleksandra Ivanova (PhD student, Department of Archaeology), and Oksana Khomyak (senior lecturer, Department of History). The project’s academic mentor is Dr Iain Banks (University of Glasgow). Collaboration is also planned with researchers from the University of Glasgow, University College London, Aarhus University, and the Ukrainian Catholic University.

The Wellcome Early Career Award supports researchers at the beginning of their independent academic careers and funds innovative projects focused on health and well-being.