Expert Categories: Internal
Yuliia Pavytska
Yuliia Pavytska is the Manager of the Sanctions Program at the KSE Institute. Since the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Yuliia has focused her research efforts on the sanctions imposed on the country, specifically evaluating their effectiveness, the state of the Russian economy, and the development of sanctions proposals. In addition, Yuliia manages the KSE Institute’s Sanctions Team and engages in building partnerships with a wide range of stakeholders, including authorities in coalition countries and other research institutions.
Yuliia joined the KSE Institute in 2020. Before February 2022 she was, as a policy researcher, engaged in diverse projects ranging from the Ukrainian labor market and agriculture sector to European integration and sectoral strategy development for Ukrainian authorities.
Prior to joining the KSE Institute, Yuliia worked at the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine (2019-2020). During her tenure, she served as a policy research assistant to the Deputy Minister of Economy, where her responsibilities covered various areas, including economic strategy and labor market policies design.
Yuliia holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the Kyiv School of Economics (2019).
(Last updated March 2024)
Benjamin Hilgenstock
Benjamin Hilgenstock is a Senior Economist at the Kyiv School of Economics’ think tank, KSE Institute, focusing on international sanctions on Russia, in particular in the areas of energy, trade, finance, and export controls. Benjamin is also an Associate Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and a member of the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions. He has written extensively on the topic of sanctions, including enforcement challenges of the G7 oil price cap regime as well as Russia’s continued access to Western technology.
Previously, Benjamin worked for the Institute of International Finance in Washington, DC (2018-2022) on the macroeconomic analysis of emerging markets, specifically those in Central and Eastern Europe and including Russia and Ukraine. Benjamin also spent several years with the International Monetary Fund’s (2016-2018) research department working on the publication of the World Economic Outlook.
He holds a Master of Arts in political science, macroeconomics, and German constitutional law from Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz (2008) and studied abroad at American University in Washington, DC and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
(Last updated March 2024)
Mariam Lobjanidze
Mariam Lobjanidze joined ISET Policy Institute in September 2018, where she is currently a Lead Economist. She received her master’s degree in economics (Summa cum Laude) from ISET. She has been actively involved in conducting Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIA) since 2019. Since 2020, she has been actively working on elaborating gender impact assessments (GIA) methodology for Georgia, conducting GIAs, and delivering Gender Impact Assessment Trainings. Her research interests include Labor Markets, Gender Economics and Social Issues, Social Policy, Energy Security, and Climate Change.
Along with her research, she works as an invited lecturer at ISET, teaching Econometrics to second-year BA students.
[Last updated February 2026]
Giorgi Shavreshiani
Giorgi Shavreshiani joined the Agriculture and Rural Policy Research Center at the ISET Policy Institute as a Researcher in August 2023. He received his bachelor’s degree with a Macroeconomics module from Tbilisi State University and completed a Master’s degree in Economics at ISET in 2020.
After graduating from ISET, Giorgi worked at the State Audit Office of Georgia at the Department of Performance Audit. Since September 2021, he has been a visiting lecturer at Ilia State University, teaching Principles of Economics to first-year BA Students.
[Last updated March 2024]
Tatia Khidasheli
Tatia Khidasheli is a researcher at the Agricultural Policy Research Center at the ISET Policy Institute. She holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the International School of Economics at TSU (ISET) and completed her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU).
In 2020, Tatia began her career at the State Audit Office of Georgia as a performance auditor, contributing to projects addressing economic efficiency and effectiveness issues within government entities and programs. As of 2022, Tatia serves as a Visiting Lecturer at Ilia State University.
[Last updated March 2024]
Ellam Kulati
Ellam is a Ph.D. researcher at CenEA and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Warsaw. He holds a MA in Economics from the University of Warsaw, and a Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Nairobi. His research interests include the economics of ageing, household, labour and behavioural economics.
Anna Anisimova
Anna Anisimova obtained her PhD in Economics from Donetsk National University in 2010, with her doctoral thesis focused on Industrial Management. She then worked there as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Statistics and Economic Cybernetics. In June 2020, she joined SITE and currently holds the position of Researcher. Her main research interests are within gender economics, human capital development and transition economics.
(Last updated September 2025)
Yuliya Markuts
Yuliya Markuts is the Head of the Centre of Public Finance and Governance at the Kyiv School of Economics and an Associate Professor at the Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics.
Yuliya is a Member of the National Council for the Reconstruction of Ukraine – an advisory body to the President of Ukraine, established to overcome the consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Her fields of specialization are public finance, public governance and local budgets.
(Last updated March 2023)
Erekle Shubitidze
Erekle Shubitidze is a Senior Researcher at the ISET Policy Institute, having joined in October 2020. Erekle holds a BA in Mathematics from the University of Georgia. In 2020, he received an MA in Economics from ISET, with his Master’s project focusing on social preferences in a variant of economic games.
Prior to his position at the ISET Policy Institute, he served as a teaching assistant for Master’s degree students at ISET, teaching modules in Macroeconomics I & II, Game Theory, and Introductory Finance.
[Last updated March 2024]
Archil Chapichadze
Archil Chapichadze is a Data Analyst at TBC Bank. Between 2021 and 2024 he was a Researcher at ISET-PI. He is also a valedictorian graduate of ISET’s BA program in economics, 2021. His bachelor’s thesis was selected by ISET and PMCG as among the best theses of the 2021 class. During his time at ISET, Archil won numerous local and international competitions, including the IMF Fund Challenge (2020), EBRD Student Challenge (2020), the first round of the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) Emerging Leaders Competition (2020), and the Mastercard student challenge “Cashless for Future” (2019).
(Last updated September 2024)