Slutskaya Sofia, from Krasnodar, Russia, is a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She has a Master's degree in Library Science from The Russian Institution. Her research interests include the contemporary situation with regional information resources, Internet usage for developing regional information infrastructures, and the place of community networks in regional information infrastructure.

Sonya (Sofia) also has conducted doctoral research about pre-revolutionary communities in Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church involvement in studying local history and promoting the idea of community in Russia. She has provided us with a paper she has written from her research, discussing these historical roots of community networking in pre-revolutionary Russia (which she has also translated into English).

Sonya's education and interest in community networking have made her an invaluable part of the Russian Civic Networking Program team. We are lucky to have her working with at the Center for International Networking Initiatives on a part-time basis where she has made many contributions to this project, workshop and web site.