Dr. Whittington earned an AB from Harvard and an MA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at Stanford. In 2018 Whittington completed her dissertation, “Forging Soviet Citizens: Ideology, Identity, and Stability in the Soviet Union, 1930-1991,” at the University of Michigan. Before arriving at the University of Illinois, she held postdoctoral fellowships at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.

In her scholarship, Dr. Whittington draws on 30 archives and libraries in eight countries to discuss civic identity and citizenship from the October Revolution to the Soviet collapse. In addition to two chapters in edited collections, her article on "Contested Privilege: Russians and the Unmaking of the Soviet Union" has recently been accepted by the Journal of Modern History. She is at work on her book manuscript titled "Repertoires of Citizenship: Inclusion, Inequality, and the Making of the Soviet People."

Dr. Whittington teaches courses on Russian and Soviet history as well as the history of central Asia and thematic courses on citizenship and borders.