I work as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Humanities, University of Eastern Finland. In my postdoctoral project, funded by the Kone Foundation (2023–2026), I study the everyday practices, networks, and expressions of transnational solidarity among Russian-speaking LGBTIQ+ activists in the Baltic states and online, particularly following Russia’s full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine in 2022.
My ethnographic PhD research (2022) examined the development and forms of LGBTIQ+ activism in St. Petersburg during the late 2010s.
I work part-time on a project funded by the Research Council of Finland, titled Menopausing: Diversity, Awareness, and Activism (2024–2028). Drawing on queer and cultural studies, I investigate menopause activist communities and influencers in Finland who seek to advance gender and age equity. More in detail, I focus on communities and influencers engaged with menopause-related themes and promoting gender and age equality, with particular emphasis on the intersectons of activism and care.
I am the principal instructor for the course Gender Studies Perspectives at the University of Eastern Finland.
I supervise doctoral candidates in gender and cultural studies and serve on doctoral follow-up committees.
I am a board member of the Association for Gender Studies in Finland and a vice member at the executive team of the national HILMA Network for Gender Studies.
Academic Degrees
- MD, Kuopio University, 1994
- PhD, Kuopio University, 1995
- Qualified Lecturer, Docent of Experimental Neurology, Kuopio University, 1997
- Specialist in Neurology, Kuopio University, 2003
- Adjunct Professor (Docent), Neurology, Kuopio University, 2006
- Professor, Kuopio University, 2009 –
Major Positions and Appointments
- Researcher, Department of Neurology, Kuopio University, 1989 – 1994
- Junior Researcher, Academy of Finland, 1995 – 1998
- Visiting Scientist, Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), University of Heidelberg, 1997 – 1999
- Resident Physician, Department of Neurology, Kuopio University Hospital, 1995 2002
- Chief Physician of Inpatient Clinic, Department of Neurology, Kuopio University Hospital, 2003 – 2006
- Chief Physician of Outpatient Clinic, Department of Neurology, Kuopio University Hospital, 2007 – 2009
- Chief of Neurological Care Unit (Stroke Unit), Kuopio University Hospital, 2004 – 2009
- Director, The Finnish Brain Research and Rehabilitation Center Neuron, 2009 – 2012
- Professor of Neurodegenerative Diseases and Rehabilitation, UEF, 2009 – 2012
- Director and Chief Physician, NeuroCenter, Kuopio University Hospital, 2012 – present
- Professor of Neurology, UEF, 2012 – present
The political and social meanings of literature are at the very center of my research. I’m particularly interested in identities and the related intersectional phenomena, problems, and categories, such as those of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. My research is, to an extent, based on Fredric Jameson’s views on the political significance of literature and culture. I have constructed my own version of the dialectic of ideology and utopia, which Jameson introduced, but left somewhat vague. The main idea is that utopia is much more than an idealistic vision of a perfect society of happiness. In my view, it is more rewarding to think of utopia as an impulse or desire, constructed in our efforts to solve problems. In literary texts, this happens both on the level of form and content. Related to these issues are also the concepts of space, mobility, and borders. My field is the literature of African Americans and the black diaspora, but these theoretical premises provide possibilities to probe into a large variety of other texts and phenomena. My current research project focuses on the representations and imaginary resolutions of the cultural trauma of the memory of slavery in contemporary African American literature.
I am in charge of teaching and supervision of theses in the practical theology (Orthodox programme) at the School of Theology. Practical theology combines various themes: liturgical theology, pastoral theology, homiletics, pedagogy of religion and canon law.
My research interests include religious education, marriage, sexual minorities, Orthodoxy in Finland (church relations, lived religion, and liturgical life) and diakonia.
I have studied ethnomusicology and folklore studies at the universities of Helsinki, Gothenburg, Joensuu and Petroszavodsk. Since 1990s I have studied the minority music and cultures as signifying practices and political and aesthetic activities. I have written about Finnish popular music among the Finns in Sweden and contemporary folk music in Petrozavodsk, Russian Karelia. I have conducted research within the contexts of identities, borders, field work, recent history, cultural policies and activities. Recently my studies have been connected with the Karelian language and music as well as Karelian cultural activism.
I am a doctoral researcher specializing in ocular drug delivery and the role of melanin binding. My research focuses on in vitro characterization of drug-melanin interactions to improve therapeutic strategies for diseases affecting the posterior segment of the eye.
My research focusses on the intertwining of literacy, social dimensions of difference and educational inequalities in the context of compulsory education, especially in vocational education and training (VET).
My main interests in research and teaching include folklore and nationalism and the politics of history, heritage and tradition, on the one hand, and ethnopoetics, the textual representation of orality, and the rites of passage theory, on the other.
One of my most notable publications is the recently published Explorations in the Violence of Traditions and Traditions of Violence (FFC 328, Helsinki, The Kalevala Society Foundation, 2025), the articles of which are based on presentations given at the Folklore Fellows Summer School held virtually at the University of Eastern Finland in 2021. Another is Tradition Through Modernity: Postmodernism and the Nation-State in Folklore Scholarship (Helsinki, Finnish Literature Society, 2005), which was published in Greek translation in 2018 and in Chinese translation in early 2026.
On Kalevala Day in 2026 I received the ninth Kalevala Society Award, worth €10,000, which is granted every three years to a person who, through their scientific or artistic work, has made a significant contribution to raising awareness of folk poetry, the Kalevala, or Finnish culture. According to the award criteria, I am currently the most internationally renowned and well-connected Finnish folklorist, and I have also made significant contributions to research into the textualisation of the Kalevala and oral tradition.
Peter Wipf’s research focuses on the total synthesis of natural products, organometallic and heterocyclic chemistry, diversity-oriented synthesis, medicinal chemistry and computational chemistry. At the heart of his research program is the study of chemical reactivity and the use of synthesis to augment the chemical toolbox and investigate new therapeutic strategies. A major emphasis involves the efficient preparation of polyfunctionalized nitrogen-containing building blocks for medicinal chemistry and natural product analog & total synthesis. The discovery of fundamentally new reaction pathways is stimulated by exploratory studies of transition metal complexes, in particular zirconocenes, and strained rings, such as bicyclo[1.1.0]butanes. One of his compounds, a PI-3 kinase inhibitor, progressed into human Phase II clinical trials in the US and Canada, and several others have been licensed by companies. Wipf’s research is highly collaborative, he has worked with dozens of national and international academic and industrial groups, and published joint papers with more than 1,300 co-authors. He has been the Chair of the Safety committee and served as a Chemical Hygiene Officer at the University of Pittsburgh for more than two decades.
