About

Welcome to my website.

Here, you will find my work dating back to 2016, when I began updating a blog for updates on my life in Moldova as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have since added journalistic work, accounts of travels to various countries and my art and sewing portfolios. I am a researcher and writer with a background in Russian, Eastern European and post-Soviet studies, as well as an artist and creator.

In 2025, I completed a Master 2: Culture, patrimoine et innovations numeriques at the Université de Picardie – Jules Verne in Amiens, France. I worked with my classmates to organize the cultural event Utoptique, a day where publics of all ages came to imagine possible futures through workshops, exhibitions, representatives from local nonprofits and an immersive dystopian Escape Game.

In May 2020, I graduated from Harvard’s Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian (REECA) master’s program. My thesis, “Moldova’s Media Formation: He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune,” focuses on Moldova’s media system and its captured state under the influence of its former Democratic party.

I also worked on the issue of intercultural communication for my Master 2 thesis, relying on participant observation as an intern at the Atelier des artistes en exil to analyze the organization’s structure, a multifaceted endeavor that includes social and administrative services, organizes artist exhibitions and events and provides studios for artists. The structure assists artists fleeing their countries due to reasons of war, repression and other internal conflict, and the organization adapts as waves of artists arrive from different countries.

Earlier, I worked as an editorial intern and freelance journalist covering Russian and Gagauz culture, the refugee crisis in Moldova at the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Russian anti-war artists in exile, and recent socio-political developments in Russia; I have been published in Published in The Moscow Times, The Sunday Post, Who What Why, bne IntelliNews and Russian Life.

I have also researched and translated legal documents to determine whether Russia’s Covid policies were sufficiently enforced to host the Special Olympics in Kazan, concluding that this was not the case. As a contractor, I compiled a report on Moldova’s human rights indicators in the late 1990s

I speak English, French and Russian, and my skillsets include writing, research, editing, program coordination, event organization and volunteer management.

You can also visit my page on LinkedIn to read more of my work: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baderhaley/

More on my life in Peace Corps

In May 2016, I began voluntary service with Peace Corps and was trained as a Community and Organizational Development Volunteer with the Miras-Moldova nonprofit in Comrat, Gagauzia, Moldova. I worked closely with my local partners to develop a journalism mentoring program for youth. We collaborated with professionals from Italy, the United States and Comrat’s television and radio station to provide writing, photography, video and video editing workshops.

Peace Corps was a unique opportunity to learn about cultural differences and experience life as a stranger to another culture. I have understood the challenges of achieving mutual understanding and the necessity to engage with others with curiosity. Through my experiences living in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and France, I have learned about hospitality and companionship, hard work and mutual respect. I am grateful to those who have worked to communicate with me across cultural and linguistic barriers.