Research portfolio · Evan Samsky
Food systems & institutional capacity in Eastern Europe
Agricultural policy · Political economy · Ukraine, Czechia, and the post-Soviet region
Graduate research on resilience, state capacity, and the institutions that shape food security under pressure.
Research anchored in agriculture, welfare, and political transition
I am a dual MA candidate in Global Policy Studies and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. My work focuses on how agricultural systems, state institutions, and social welfare structures shape resilience across Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space.
Across my projects, I study how climate stress, conflict, and political transition affect the governance of food systems. I am especially interested in the institutional side of adaptation: the administrative capacity, policy incentives, and historical legacies that determine whether reform can take hold.
Selected places in study, research, and field-based work
This map highlights places that already structure the current research agenda. Move across the highlighted countries, or select one on mobile, to view the related experience.
Ukraine
I conducted policy research on climate adaptation in Ukrainian agriculture and produced briefing materials on food security, agricultural recovery, and environmental sustainability.
Studying how institutions condition resilience in everyday systems
My graduate research examines food security and agricultural resilience in Eastern Europe, with particular attention to Ukraine and the wider post-Soviet region. I am interested in what happens when essential sectors like agriculture must adapt under simultaneous environmental, economic, and political strain.
Before graduate school, I completed dual bachelor's degrees in Biology and Middle Eastern Language and Culture at UT Austin. My undergraduate thesis traced the Soviet stolovaya cafeteria system as a form of public food aid, which set the foundation for my ongoing interest in the institutional life of food.
Together, that background has pushed my work toward questions that are both historical and policy-oriented: how states provision, how infrastructures persist, and how institutions are reworked under stress.
Institutional capacity under pressure
Current projects ask how agricultural governance systems respond to conflict, climate risk, and uneven development, and what those responses reveal about state capacity.
Read the assessment Institutional Capacity for Climate Action in Ukraine’s Agricultural Sector.
- Russian and Arabic: advanced
- Ukrainian: intermediate
- Czech: active study
- Fieldwork and lived experience across five countries
Three threads organize the work
Food systems and agricultural policy
Examining how land use, production systems, and policy incentives shape food access, export dependence, and rural resilience.
Post-Soviet transitions and welfare institutions
Tracing what continuity, reform, and institutional drift look like after socialism, especially in sectors tied to everyday material life.
Climate adaptation and political economy
Studying how environmental stress interacts with governance capacity, reconstruction, and competing development models.
Recent training, fellowship support, and momentum
- 2025UT Austin Graduate School Summer Excellence Fellowship
Support for focused summer research and project development.
- 2025FLAS Fellow, Czech Language, Indiana University
Intensive language study tied to planned thesis fieldwork in Czechia.
- 2024–25FLAS Fellow, Ukrainian Language, UT Austin
Advanced regional language training supporting research on Ukraine and agricultural governance.