Professor Ausma Cimdina s a prominent Latvian literary scholar and critic specializing in Latvian, Baltic, and East European literary relationships as well as Feminist Studies and Theory of Literature. She received her Ph.D. from the Latvian Academy of Sciences in 1992. She is currently the Dean of Faculty of Philology at the University of Latvia

Dr. Cimdina will be researching former President of Latvia, Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga