Hey hey! :) I'm Tamar, a Financial Economics student at the University of St Andrews, based in historic and picturesque Scotland. I am originally from Georgia (the country!), heading into my 3rd year of undergraduate study. This summer marks my first as a Laidlaw Scholar, and I am incredibly excited to be undertaking my research project: “Beyond Words: Women, Equality and the Early Esperanto Language Community.” Through historical artefacts, I will be exploring how the early Esperanto movement (1900s–1920s) created inclusive spaces for women, challenging the gender norms of its era. Given that gender inequality remains a pressing issue today, it is fascinating to explore how earlier generations managed to confront these challenges, despite arguably more rigid societal constraints. You might be surprised by my choice of a socio-historic topic — after all, I study finance and economics. But I have always been fascinated by interdisciplinary thinking. My curiosity often leads me to explore humanities subjects at length, and I take every chance I get to expand my horizons beyond my degree. What's more, this project gives me the perfect excuse to pick up another language! Language learning is one of my greatest passions (although I must confess I dabble more than I master), and I am always on the lookout for compelling study materials. Outside of academics, I adore capturing the beauty of my surroundings, travelling and planning future trips, reading, watching great cinema, and unwinding with music — I even brought my national instrument, the Panduri, to St Andrews all the way from Georgia and strum it as much as I can to keep a little piece of home with me.  If any of this sparks your interest —  whether you got curious about my research, want to exchange language-learning tips, or just chat about shared interests, I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out here or connect with me on LinkedIn. Look forward to connecting with you! :)

With my current interests in media studies and being impacted by the ongoing war in Ukraine, I became interested to explore the communicative methods used within the environments of far-right, authoritarian regimes. My project 'The Dominance of Collective Mystical Thinking Within the Rise of Far-Right Politics' will delve into the performance of authoritarian governance based on magical practices, involving interaction based on set of rituals and symbolic elements that aims to distance individuals from objective reality and involve them into specific collective imaginary.  The research will focus on communicative applications, particularly looking into speech structure and non-verbal elements (context, gestures, media tools). It will analyse the online materials to understand the communicative patterns used between participants, contributing to the greater understanding of the authoritarian structure and its potentials for social control, and finding pathways for its resistance.  --- I'm incoming third year Film and Anthropology student, being interested in documentary and video-essay form. I have extensive background in cinematography and commercial videography, with passion of story making and telling.  I am interested to communicate and expand my knowledge, share my experience, especially if you are working with similar topics of Magic, Political Power, War, Displacement, Media and Communication

I’m currently a penultimate year mathematics student at the University of St Andrews and a 2025 Leadership and Research Scholar. My research project was in Pure Mathematics, specifically Algebraic Graph Theory. I studied pseudo-similar vertices in graphs and digraphs using inverse semigroups. I will be completing my LiA this summer with the Timothy Smith Network, acting as an instructor in web design for the Boston Design Academy in Boston, USA.