In Memoriam: Dr Yulia Chistyakova

It is with great sadness that the University announces the death of Dr Yulia Chistyakova following a period of illness.

Yulia worked at LJMU as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology for just short of 10 years, teaching on a portfolio of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. She touched the lives of many staff and students at LJMU and beyond, as demonstrated by the condolences received by her LJMU colleagues from the Open University, where Yulia worked as an Associate Lecturer in Criminology and Social Justice, and from the Centre of Crime and Justice Studies at Stirling University where Yulia had worked in the early stages of her academic career as a Research Fellow.

Having started her undergraduate studies at Novosibirsk State University in Russia and progressing to postgraduate studies in the Czech Republic and Poland, Yulia attained her doctorate from the Open University 2010. Her research interest in Russia and Ukraine continued into a range of publications reflecting on crime, policing and Russian criminology, before focussing on organised crime infiltration and the confiscation of criminal assets in the UK. Most recently Yulia was researching the experience of minority ethnic women in English criminal courts alongside colleagues Jenny Johnstone, Newcastle University and Bankole Cole, Sheffield Hallam University. She was passionate and assiduous in undertaking this research despite many thwarted attempts to identify and observe suitable court cases.

Yulia’s colleagues and students at LJMU will remember her best as a hardworking and committed higher education teacher who was determined to support and develop her students; to champion the needs and preferences of students with special educational needs and disabilities; and to do so while maintaining high academic standards. She did so with insight, empathy and humour. Yulia was an amazing colleague and friend to all who worked with her closely and her generous and quiet collegiality will be much missed by the Criminology community at LJMU.

Yulia leaves behind her beloved husband, Gaston and daughter, Mila.

Yulia’s funeral will take place at 11.30am on Tuesday 19^th November at Greenacres, Rainford.