Aigerim Toleukhanova
aigerimt@umd.eduAigerim Toleukhanova is a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Her research examines how journalism and visual media shape representations of marginalized communities, political violence and collective action, with particular attention to Central Asia and transnational contexts.
Her interests include archival research, social justice, social movements, digital activism, memory studies, gendered media representation and media freedom. She is particularly interested in how news media make particular forms of suffering, agency and political demands visible, and how they shape public understandings of historical violence and contested memory. As a teaching assistant, she has supported instruction on the history of extremism and domestic terrorism in the United States and helped journalism students develop practical skills in visual investigation.
Before beginning her doctoral studies, Toleukhanova worked as a journalist in Kazakhstan and internationally. She was a digital editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kazakh Service and has contributed to Foreign Policy, The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, The Diplomat and EurasiaNet. She also worked as an adjunct lecturer at KIMEP University (Kazakhstan), where she taught data storytelling to undergraduate and graduate students.
Areas of Interest
- Central Asian studies
- Media, geopolitics and transnational activism
- Social movements and social justice
- Transnational politics
- Memory studies
Education
- B.A. (Journalism), International IT University (Kazakhstan)
- M.A. (International Journalism), KIMEP University (Kazakhstan)
- M.Sc. (Media and Communications), The London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom)