Professor Cynthia Kaplan recently returned from a research trip to Kazakstan.   During her visit, Professor Kaplan met with scholars and students.  She attended a meeting of the undergraduate Political Science Club at Al-Farabi Kazakhstan National University (Almaty) and was a foreign guest at the Academic Olympiad, which included students from across Kazakhstan. Professor Kaplan noted that at the Olympiad, she gave greetings to about 250 students in Kazakh, Russian, and English and received applause every time she spoke in Kazakh.

Professor Kaplan was named to the editorial board for the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies journal Spector. One of the meetings during her visit was profiled on the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies website.

Translation from original text:

As part of the continuing efforts to improve cooperation with international experts, a meeting took place in Almaty with Cynthia Kaplan, a professor of Political Science at the University of California Santa Barbara. The participants of the meeting included Gulnar Nasimova, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Political Technology at Al-Farabi Kazakhstan National University, and Madina Nugalieva, the Assistant Director of the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies in Almaty. 

The experts discussed the current state of the world and Kazakhstani social sciences.  Questions discussed included the methods and approaches used in the organization of research. One of the key themes of the meeting was the discussion regarding the format of cooperation between experts regarding training, expertise, and the copyright of scientific articles in the journal Kazakhstan-Spector.

Professor Cynthia Kaplan and Professor Gulnar Nasimova have been part of the editorial board of the journal since 2016.