Alina Lozovskaya is a practical Data Scientist / Machine Learning Engineer at Hugging Face. In 2020, she successfully completed her master’s thesis at Ural Federal University. As an applied linguist, she has a strong interest in applying modern machine learning methods to textual and audio data, particularly in the areas of large language models and speech processing. She focuses on building and improving NLP systems from scratch, with particular attention to their robustness and real-world applicability. As an open-source contributor, she values transparent, collaborative development and practical impact. Her goal is to present valuable insights that are relevant to both linguistic experts and software engineers across different fields.

Alina loves playing the guitar and taking photos in her free time.

Danil Pitolin is an independent researcher based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, previously holding positions of an associate professor at Ural Federal University and an assistant professor at Ural State Pedagogical University.
His research interests include bilingualism, language contact, variation and change, and language attrition. 

Danil sees the mission of the current study of Russian-English bilinguals as not just paying attention to linguistic phenomena that have been overlooked but also giving voices to language attriters and destigmatizing language attrition in particular, as well as any bilingual dynamics.

In his free time Danil explores his ability to play different musical instruments and has moderate ambitions playing the game of go.

Senior Data Scientist \ Senior Vice President at Raiffeisen Bank Russia with 5 years of experience in Data Science, MLops, and AI-driven analytics. Successfully creates complex Data Science projects, advanced analytics, and ML solutions to generate meaningful insights for business operations. In addition, Semyon is involved in training junior staff and has an ability to explain Data Science topics in simple language, offering straightforward solutions to complex technical problems. 

Semyon enjoys taking street photos and run a cooking blog in his free time.

Natalia received her Master's degree in Linguistics from Saint-Petersburg State University. Her main academic interests lie in bilingualism, teaching foreign languages, and language contact between English and Russian. Her research focuses on the lexical aspects of these languages, particularly code-mixing and lexical borrowings in the speech of Russian-English bilinguals.

In her free time, Natalia loves reading, trying new recipes, and cycling.

Ekaterina received her master’s degree in philology from the Ural Federal University. She is interested in language contact between English and Russian. Her research is focused on the differences of phonetical aspects of these two languages, particularly the voice onset time in the speech of Russian-English bilinguals and vowel interference.

Zakhro Zhianbekhova holds a bachelor’s degree in German Philology from Ural Federal University (UrFU). She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Islamic Institute of Integration (Georgia), where she pursues advanced research in the field of language studies and intercultural communication.

Her primary research interest is language interference and attrition in Russian—Turkish bilinguals speech. Her academic interests encompass multilingualism, language contact, and translation studies. Alongside her doctoral research, she is professionally engaged as a literary editor in islamic publishing houses. She also works as a professional translator in the English–Russian and Russian–Turkish language pairs.

Research Assistant, 2022–2024

Pavel Averinskii is a graduate of the Department of Fundamental and Applied Linguistics at Ural Federal University and a former member of the research group. During his time with the group, he investigated grammatical interference in late Russian–English bilingual speech and actively presented his findings at academic conferences.

He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree with a research focus on authorial symbolism and its transformations in the films of Stanley Kubrick. His thesis examines how culturally established symbols acquire modified or reinterpreted meanings in Kubrick’s cinematic works. The project combines film and textual analysis and is grounded in semiotics, employing componential and comparative methods to substantiate claims about symbolic meaning and transformation.

Alongside his academic work, Pavel continues to teach English, applying linguistic theory to pedagogical practice.

Research Assistant, 2022–2024

Olesya studied fundamental and applied linguistics at Ural Federal University, where she contributed to the BLInG with a focus on linguistic interference in late bilinguals' speech. Her research centered on lexical features in the speech of Russian-English bilinguals with English as the dominant language, exploring how the mother tongue is affected in a second-language-dominant environment. She currently works as an English language teacher.