Taras Tsymbal is a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His interdisciplinary research bridges historical sociology, political psychology, and economic history, with a focus on globalization, market integration, and authoritarianism. Dr. Tsymbal’s work includes quantitative investigations of 18th- and 19th-century Ukrainian markets and epidemics, exploring the dynamics of pre-industrial economies and public health crises through spatial analysis and GIS tools. He has also contributed to cross-cultural psychometric studies of authoritarian attitudes, advancing the measurement of political psychology in post-Soviet contexts.