Laura Dean 🇱🇻🇺🇦
@lauradean.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Human Trafficking Research Lab at Millikin University (she/her) 🇱🇻🇺🇦
@thelasttheorist.bsky.social not sure if you saw this news that Professor Paul Schumaker passed away. He lived a pretty amazing life! www.warrenmcelwain.com/obituaries/p...
Paul Schumaker Obituary Jul 23, 2026 - Warren-McElwain Mortuary & Cremation Services
View Paul Schumaker's obituary, send flowers, find service dates, and sign the guestbook.
warrenmcelwain.com
July 30 is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. Sharing some updates from the Human Trafficking Research Lab and our work over the summer reflecting on my time in Central Illinois! www.humantraffickingresearchlab.org/2026/07/sayi...
My book Gendering the Saeima: The Politics of Women's Representation in #Latvia was approved for publication in spring 2027 by the Indiana University Press board! Here is the cover art by 🇱🇻 artist Elīna Brasliņa which is a lovely representation of the research in the book.
My last #AcWri Saturday at my local coffee shop in Decatur today! I submitted my book manuscript Gendering the Saeima: The Politics of Women's Representation in Latvia for production and copy editing. So glad to get through another stage of the long book writing process! 🇱🇻 📚
Visited Champaign one last time for #AcWri with a friend and working on book formatting. I will miss all of the talks and colleagues at the Ukrainian Studies program and libraries at the University of Illinois. After the Russian invasion, I found solidarity and hope in these spaces! 🇺🇦 ❤️
We are selling our Decatur house so Scarlett and I leave the house for the showings. We go to our local coffee shop and I get an iced coffee while she gets a pup cup. Then we go take a walk in the park but I think Scarlett is just jazzed to ride in the car and bark at things! 🐕🦴 ☕
No one ever tells you how hard it is to go from this.....to this! My #AcWri coffee views are not as exciting as they were last week but at least I am still working on my book Gendering the Saeima with Latvian interviews so I get to continue using my 🇱🇻 skills even back in the US!
Sadly my summer in Latvia has come to an end. I studied abroad here at 19 and I just keep coming back (now I even bring my students). I am always thankful to be able to spend so many summers with my host family and friends in a place which at this point feels like my 2nd home! 🇱🇻
One of the last things I did in Latvia was visit the Dziesmusvētku telpa/Song festival space and view the Song and Dance festival exposition in Mežaparks. The GPS coordinates were wrong & they should have just said it was in the Lielā estrāde but it was an interesting exhibit! 🇱🇻
Was able to catch the opening and closing ceremonies of the 20th Baltic Student Song and Dance Festival “Gaudeamus” in Rīga last weekend. The festival brought together 4,000 students from 🇱🇻🇱🇹🇪🇪 and I never knew there was a student song that everyone stands to sing!
Thankful for a few extra days in Latvia to celebrate the midsummer festival! Saw Skroderdienas Silmačos, went to the Zāļu tirgus, and heard the Suitu sievas sing at Kalnciema kvartāls. Līgo Līgo 🌿 🇱🇻
At Newcastle University this week for the European Conference on Politics and Gender 2026 and the campus is lovely..... incidentally right across the street from the stadium for Newcastle United football club! #ECPG
Visited the newly renovated Latvian National Museum of Literature and Music's exhibit Procrastination and Creation. I enjoyed seeing what they displayed for all my favorite writers Aspazija, Nora Ikstena, Vizma Belševica. It was also fun to learn new facts about 🇱🇻 poets & composers!
That's a wrap on our Baltic Immersion 2026! The students arrived home from our 20 day trip across 🇱🇻🇱🇹🇪🇪🇫🇮🇩🇰 with 1,324 miles 7 buses, 4 trains, and 2 boats. We ended the trip with a premiere of La Bohème at the Latvian National Opera and spotted President Edgars Rinkēvičs!
We hiked to the highest point on the Curonian Spit on the Parnidis dune outside of Nida, Lithuania to see a sand border with Russia (the dark area past the trees). It was raining and there were tons of mosquitoes but it was so interesting to see this border for the first time. 🇱🇹
We began our time in Vilnius with two different festivals! One was the pink soup festival celebrating Lithuania's most famous cold beet soup šaltiborščiai. The next was the folk festival Skamba skamba kankliai where my students finally achieved their Baltic choir concert goal! 🇱🇹
We spent the morning at the 🇱🇻 Foreign Ministry learning about Latvia's foreign policy goals. We even got to meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Most of these Millikin students will represent Latvia at the American Model United Nations Conference.
Some updates to the Human Trafficking Research Lab blog today with posts on the first Illinois Statewide Human Trafficking Conference in Peoria and my last CIHTTF meeting. Check out our work here: www.humantraffickingresearchlab.org
After 10 years at Millikin University and earning the rank of full professor (the 1st woman political scientist in school history to earn that title) I am resigning from my position at the end of this academic year. I loved my political science students and colleagues
Coffee views Peoria Illinois edition at CxT Roasting Company! Probably one of the best lattes I have had in a long time and I drink a lot of coffee.... ☕
Busy day at Unity Fest, a softball game, and senior art show but I was able to see so many current and former students on a lovely sunny and windy day in Central Illinois!
April updates from the Human Trafficking Research Lab on all of our tabling and research progress in April! Getting ready for the Illinois #HumanTrafficking Conference in Peoria next week! humantraffickingresearchlab.org/?m=1
Got in a few hours of #AcWri Saturday this morning before our Honors Showcase presentations at Millikin begin! Working on the literature review for our fourth NSF funded article on online #HumanTrafficking recruitment during Russia's war in Ukraine. 🇺🇦
Celebrations of Scholarship continued at Millikin today. I had 3 students present at the Judith and G. Richard Locke Poster Symposium Awards and one won 1st place in our category for her research Islands of Immigration: Divergent Approaches to Refugee Integration in 🇮🇪 & 🇦🇺!
Lovely spring days bring all of Millikin's inhabitants out of hibernation to snack on some nuts and sprawl out in the shade of Shilling Hall! 🐿️
Today for Easter my Ukrainian friends from Kharkiv brought me a paska, a traditional Ukrainian Easter bread. I dislike everything about Russia's war in Ukraine but I am so grateful to have Ukrainians in my small town in Central Illinois sponsored by our local Rotary Club. 🇺🇦
The Human Trafficking Research Lab will be tabling at Take Back the Night this year. Thankful for the opportunity to support survivors of gender based violence, to share our research and fair trade chocolate with the community and for our collaboration with Growing Strong.
Rainy #AcWri Saturday today at my local coffee shop doing the tedious but necessary work of making sure all of my citations are listed in the references section of my book Gendering the Saeima: the Politics of Women's Representation in Latvia. 🇱🇻
The Human Trafficking Research Lab will be tabling at the Vendor's Market at Milli-Fest. We will have Lab merch and Freedom Studios products made by #HumanTrafficking survivors. Stop by on Saturday April 18 on the quad to learn about our research and support our work!
