Oksana Seumenicht graduated in Nuclear Physics with honors from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine (1992). She then carried out her PhD research in Radiobiology at the Institute of Cell Biology and Genetic Engineering, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv) and gained a PhD in Biology (1995). Oksana Seumenicht worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Ukraine, Denmark, Germany and the UK (including the University of Oxford and UCL), supported by a number of competitive personal fellowships, e.g. from the DAAD (1998-1999), the Royal Society of the Great Britain (1999-2000) and the Wellcome Trust, UK (2000-2002). In 2005 Oksana Seumenicht joined the Research & Commercial Division of Cardiff University (UK) as Research Development Officer. She moved to Berlin in 2006 and was appointed as the first PhD Coordinator of the MDC-HU Berlin International PhD Program “Molecular Cell Biology”. Subsequently she raised funds for and built up the MDC Graduate School, which she managed (2007-2009). In 2010-2018 she worked as the MDC’s International Relations Officer, and since 2018 she works at the Department for Strategic Cooperations and Research Funding, MDC.

In 2015 Oksana Seumenicht co-founded the UKRainian Academic International NETwork (UKRAINET) and German-Ukrainian Academic Society (DUAG) in 2016, and she has been serving as DUAG’s Managing Director since. Oksana Seumenicht was born in Kirovograd region, Ukraine, is married and has three children.