Isabelle DeSisto is a PhD candidate in Politics at Princeton University. She studies comparative politics with a regional focus on Eastern Europe. DeSisto’s dissertation examines the long-term effects of Soviet-era repression on contemporary political behavior in the region. In other research projects, she studies public opinion and propaganda in Russia, local governance in Ukraine, and the role of political exiles in revolutions. DeSisto is a 2025 awardee of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) Dissertation Grant.