Jack Leydiker is a first-year student in the BA/MPP program at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Pursuing a career at the nexus of academia and foreign policy, his intellectual interests concern Soviet nationality policy in eastern Europe and central Asia, as well as post-Soviet nation-building with a focus on language politics. 

Professionally, Jack is passionate about contributing to the political and economic development of his ancestral home, Ukraine, and he is researching the role of civil society in post-war reconstruction efforts in the Ukrainian education sector. As an undergraduate at Yale, he worked as a research intern for The Reckoning Project: Ukraine Testifies, where he documented evidence of Russian war crimes committed since February 24, 2022, for post-war prosecution. He also volunteers at the Yale Interpretation Network, where he provides pro bono translations of legal documents from Russian to English to defend dissidents targeted by the Russian judicial system. He has also taught English-language programs for Ukrainian refugees in Poland, the Czech Republic, and the U.S. Jack has been published in The Diplomat and the Cambridge-based Central and East European Affairs Review.