Ian Thatcher undertook graduate work in Russian at Soviet History at Glasgow, famous as the scholarly home of the journal Soviet Studies and of the late Professor Alec Nove.The Head of the Glasgow Institute at that time was Professor Bill Wallace, one of the founders of the History Department at Coleraine. Ian's route to a Chair at Ulster was academic posts in Scotland, New Zealand, and England.Ian is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a member of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution (UK) and of the Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies (USA).Research FieldsThe history of Russian Social Democracy, the 1917 Revolution in Russia, and the history of the USSR.Ian has received funding from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust.He has also held a visiting fellowship at the Slavic Research Centre, Hokkaido University, Japan; a Research Directorship at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Study, University of Helsinki; and has been a British Academy-Russian Academy of Sciences Exchange Scholar.