Daria Shembel earned her Ph.D. in Slavic Studies and Film from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in 2009. Since 2005 she has been teaching European Studies, New Media and Film at San Diego State University. Her primary academic interests lie in Soviet and European film theories and histories, new media/old media historiography, Russian Modernism with an emphasis on poetry and visual culture, global, European and Eastern European media.