STEP Team 

Svetlana Sokolova

Project Lead, Norway

Svetlana Sokolova is Professor of Russian Linguistics at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, Norway, and a member of the research group CLEAR (Cognitive Linguistics: Empirical Approaches to Russian). She currently serves as Head of the Russian programs at UiT and is the Norwegian project lead for Hybrid STEP. Her research interests lie primarily in Cognitive Linguistics and Construction Grammar, with particular emphasis on Russian morphology and syntax, linguistic variation, language pedagogy, and the development of innovative teaching resources and practices. In recent years, she has led four innovative language-learning projects, two of which were funded by the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (HK-dir). She has also played a central role in the development of the beginner-level teaching resource My Russian Journey, which is currently being prepared for publication as a book. As the Norwegian project lead for Hybrid STEP, Sokolova oversees the virtual exchange between UiT and USC, analyzes students’ language gains, coordinates guest lectures by scholars from partner universities, and serves as a key member of the organizing committee for the CALP conference hosted at UiT. She also leads the Columbia immersion component for UiT students.