Many of our supporters and followers ask the same question – who are Razomers? And we, as always, answer that Razom is our volunteers, Razomers, whose hearts ache for Ukraine, who give their time, expertise and energy in pursuit of a common goal – a strong and independent Ukraine!
All of our photos show only a fraction of Razom volunteers. Today, Razom is comprised of:
200+ active volunteers in the US (and a few hundred more who help periodically)
20+ volunteers in Canada
20+ volunteers in Poland
50+ volunteers in Ukraine
dozens of partner organizations
procurement teams, logistics, sorting, warehouse platform developers, warehouse operators, drivers, communicators, financiers, donor support team, advocacy team, lawyers, protest and charity concert organizers, and an entire team responding to endless emails and phone calls
Our teams’ intense cooperation and hard work have resulted so far in:
more than 200 tons of cargo sent to Ukraine: tactical medicine, hospital medicine, civilian drones for safe medical delivery, walkie-talkies, telephones, rations
delivered goods to Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa regions
hundreds of events in support of Ukraine in the United States and Canada
hundreds of advocacy interviews in the US and Canadian press
and a great desire to win the war!
We are deeply grateful to all our volunteers for their dedication and tireless work!
Багато хто задає те саме запитання – хто такі Razomці? А ми, як завжди, відповідаємо, що Razom – це і є наші волонтери, Razomці, у яких болить серце за Україну, які віддають свій час, знання та енергію заради спільної мети – сильної та незалежної України!
На всіх наших фотографіях – лише частина волонтерів Razom. А загалом, наразі під час війни Razom – це:
200+ активних волонтерів в США (і ще кілька сотень таких, що допомагають періодично)
20+ волонтерів в Канаді
20+ волонтерів в Польщі
50+ волонтерів в Україні
десятки партнерських організацій
команди закупівель, логістики, сортування, розробники платформи складу, оператори складу, водії, комунікаційники, фінансисти, команда підтримки донорів, адвокаційна команда, юристи, організатори протестів і благодіних концертів, команда, яка відповідає на чисельні емейли і телефонні дзвінки
Інтенсивна співпраця та наполеглива робота наших команд наразі вже привели до наступних результатів:
понад 200 тон вантажів відправлених в Україну: тактична медицина, госпітальна медицина, цивільні дрони задля безпеки перевезень, рації, телефони, сухпайки
доставлені вантажі в Житомирську, Київську, Чернігівську, Сумську, Харківську, Луганську, Донецьку, Дніпровську, Запорізьку, Миколаївську, Одеську області
сотні подій на підтримку України в США і Канаді
сотні адвокаційних інтерв’ю в пресі США і Канади
і величезне бажання виграти війну!
Ми щиро вдячні всім нашим волонтерам за самовідданість та невтомну працю!
Today a brave group of volunteers delivered much needed tactical medicine supplies to Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine about 30 miles from the Russian border. It’s a city that’s been sustaining shelling and urban fighting since the moment of Russian invasion. Maybe we’ll get an extra hour of sleep knowing that Ukrainian people have the necessary medicine to defend their city.
Meanwhile halfway across the world, a group of Canadian Razom volunteers have built out partnerships and a logistical chain to be able to procure and ship tactical medical supplies from Toronto to Ukraine. They’ve partnered up with the Markham Rotary Club Foundation and NKS Health to fundraise, buy, and ship 13 pallets of tacmed so far. Check out how they do this work in more detail below:
Last but not least, we’ve grown our Razom team of volunteers at the Kryla Nadiyi warehouse in Lviv to 8 people (and soon more), who come to us from the Ministry of Veterans Affairs in Ukraine, and who will be working there daily to accept Razom’s aid shipments that are arriving more consistently now. They’re sorting and organizing aid for further distribution so that we can get these supplies into the hands of Ukrainians as fast as humanly possible.
Razom Emergency Response project continues to grow and develop at an incredible speed thanks to the support of our donors and dedicated volunteer network in the US and Ukraine. The war and resulting humanitarian crisis has only continued to escalate over the past week, putting our logistics operation on the ground in Ukraine into stark focus.
The first shipments of humanitarian aid procured by Razom delivered to Berdychiv in Zhytomyr Oblast on March 9th
The reality is that delivering aid past the warehouse of our partners at Kryla Nadiyi in western Ukraine is an extremely difficult task. The very first shipments of tactical medicine (purchased & shipped on day two of the war) made it into the hands of civilian defense corps in Kyiv and Zhytomyr oblasts on March 9th. It was four days later, on March 13th, that more aid made the journey east – this timeby two mini buses heading to Kyiv (including Brovary) and Poltava (with an extra leg to Sumy) oblasts.
Russian forces are actively shelling and endangering transportation infrastructure across the country therefore safe routes are constantly changing. In addition, humanitarian needs on the ground change just as fast, if not faster. Speed and boots on the ground are of the essence. Razom has both, which gives us a unique chance to deliver the aid acquired abroad to the end user in Ukraine, knowing that your donations are in the right hands.
Aid is packed into small vehicles allowing volunteer drivers to maneuver more nimbly. Coordination with civilian defense corps (the ultimate volunteer network in Ukraine today) via satellite phones, which offer the most reliable form of communication, strengthen our logistics chain on the ground in Ukraine. There’s also a verbal verification system in place that ensures volunteers know they’re putting the delivery in safe hands. When available, small civilian drones are another important tool for our volunteers to scope out safe passage routes and share valuable information in real time. These tech enabled emergency response supplies have made a big impact on our volunteers’ ability to work effectively in executing the logistics chain in Ukraine. We are enormously grateful for the brave and trusted group of the people who carry out this work.
Tactical Medical Aid being prepped and loaded for distribution in Ukraine. Markings read “Sumy” and “Poltava”
As we celebrate each and every delivery of humanitarian aid that makes it into the hands of Ukrainians, we continue to follow a repeatable logistics process for procuring and delivering aid from abroad to warehouses in Poland and western Ukraine. Euromaidan Warszawa is our trusted partner in Warsaw that receives shipments procured throughout western Europe and delivers them to western Ukraine. Meest America is delivering shipments procured from the United States directly to Ukraine. So far, approximately $4M has been spent on tactical medical supplies, communications supplies, and logistics support. All of our aid is received in western Ukraine by our partners Kryla Nadiyi (Wings of Hope). They warehouse, sort, and prepare orders of aid that then gets distributed further. A small group of engineers, in collaboration with two Razom volunteers (in the US and Ukraine) have developed an online system to help track requests submitted by a centralized network of civilian defense corps central command. These requests then get cross referenced to active hotspots and prioritized based on safe routes.
The many faces of Kryla Nadiyi volunteers accepting, sorting, and organizing humanitarian aid for distribution across Ukraine
We are incredibly grateful to the volunteers and partner organizations who work daily on this project (most days staying up until 4am!) coordinating information, connecting volunteer networks, and helping to take in, protect, and distribute shipments donated through Razom. To our donors, your continued support ensures we can make an impact across more parts of Ukraine. We can’t wait to keep sharing those stories with you as they develop.
We are thrilled to announce a new member to the Razom Board of Directors: Maria Genkin.
Maria has been deeply involved with Razom since 2017 and has been an enthusiastic supporter since 2014 when she attended a concert by Taras Chubai in New York. It is Maria who co-founded and is now managing the Razom Book Club. It’s Maria who initiated and built the partnership with the Serhiy Zhadan Charitable Foundation in Ukraine. It’s Maria who recommended Razom to PEN America as an organization to host an open community meeting with Oleg Sentsov in New York, where Maria moderated the conversation from the stage in January this year.
Born and raised in Lviv, Maria grew up speaking Russian. She was drawn to Razom because the volunteers and the projects reflect the multi-dimensional characteristics of a modern, forward-looking Ukraine, and she is looking forward to promoting Ukraine by encouraging connections among various groups and regions around the common goal of establishing a successful and self-reliant European Ukraine.
Maria has kindly shared with us her personal path of establishing her identity as a Ukrainian, which you can find below.
We heartily welcome Maria at the Razom Board of Directors! Looking forward to amazing collaborations and fun while building a prosperous Ukraine project by project RAZOM.
My story by Maria Genkin
As I am beginning my tenure as a member of Razom for Ukraine Board, I want to reflect on my background and the path I took to being involved in an organization working for a Ukrainian cause. It is not a straightforward path as in the last fifteen years I have started a Russian language school in NYC and served on the board of the Joseph Brodsky Fellowship Fund. Nevertheless to me it is part of the same story and it really comes down to my identity.
I have always considered myself a Ukrainian, but growing up Russian speaking in Lviv had made this identification somewhat difficult. Ukrainian and Russian communities in Lviv were not well integrated. In the late 80s and early 90s, with the resurgence of Ukrainian Nationalism and disintegration of the Soviet Union, these differences became especially apparent. To be a Ukrainian meant to speak Ukrainian exclusively, have relatives that fought for independencе, go to the newly resurrected Greek Catholic Church, own a vyshyvanka, that may have been passed down from a grandma, don’t eat meat at Christmas Eve dinner, and hold off all housework on Sundays. At least this was my perception of what ‘being a Ukrainian’ was at the time.
I did not fit that mold. My name was Maша Кiсельова. Even though my Ukrainian speaking grandparents lived only 200 kilometers east of Lviv, I spoke poor Ukrainian, went to a Russian school (coincidentally the same one where Ruslana Lyzhychko went at the time), and had mostly Russian speaking friends. My Ukrainian grandparents came from the other side of Zbruch, were ambivalent about Ukrainian nationalists, loved their socialism, and while they celebrated Christmas, nobody remembered that you were only supposed to have vegetarian dishes on the table.
My Ukrainian speaking mom from Khmelnytska oblast, met and subsequently married my Russian speaking dad, when they both attended Lvivska Polytechnica. He has lived in Lviv for most of his life. When she moved in with him, she also moved in with his dad, my grandfather. Grandfather was not a greatly educated man, who moved to Lviv after his retirement in 1959, and he did not speak a word of Ukrainian. Hence my mother switched to Russian, and when I was born, continued to speak Russian to me. The theories of bilingualism being beneficial to brain development were not yet popular at the time.
My high school was a Russian high school, which was not that unusual. At least 35% of the population of Lviv was Russian speaking, and for the most part, it was not Russified Ukrainians, but transplants from Russia itself, that, like my grandparents, filled in the vacuum left by Holocaust and the post-war reallocation of Poles. I was fortunate to have amazing teachers of Ukrainian, but I am saddened to say that at that time of our lives we felt very removed from what was happening around us because of the language and our backgrounds. Many of my classmates felt like unwelcomed outsiders. The local brand of nationalism to us seemed quite outdated and unrelatable.
That was the time of ambiguity for me. Can I be a Ukrainian when I don’t fit here? Russia is now a different country, but I still have relatives there, and I feel cultural affinity, but at the same time, I do not feel as I fit there either, and there is a lot in Ukrainian culture that still matters greatly to me. Who am I?
After I enrolled in Lvivska Polytechnica, I started traveling in Ukraine more. I became a co-founder of the Lviv chapter of the International Student organization, AIESEC. Being in that organization introduced me to students from Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Berdyansk and Kherson. Under the auspices of Bohdan Havrylyshyn, AIESEC Ukraine has established itself as an independent entity and I have attended our first congress in Donetsk in the winter of 1994. With this experience came a realization that there is a Ukraine bigger than our local Lviv version of it and with all of the differences in the regions, we have a common goal to build a prosperous Ukraine. Around the same time I also made a lot more Ukrainian speaking Lviv friends and I realized that I have had certain prejudices and they do not hold true once you meet real people and you start working on the common goal.
However, what changed it all was a scholarship from the Ukrainian Professional and Business Persons Organization that I received in the summer of 1994 to attend the Summer School at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI). Bohdan Vitvitsky, a former Federal Prosecutor, was one of the sponsors. I took courses with George Grabowicz, a professor at HURI, and Virko Balley. Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, who is currently a director of the Canadian Ukrainian Institute, became a lifelong friend. I met Halyna Hryn, who is currently a president of НТШ, and Virlana Tkacz. But most importantly, I listened to a lecture on national identity by Roman Szporluk, at the time a professor of History at Harvard, and it was all of a sudden very clear to me. Identity is not something that is imposed on me by others – I define what my identity is. And no matter what language is dominant for me or what my background is, I have a right to choose to be a Ukrainian. And I have never changed that.
A year later, in 1995, I came to the states on a scholarship to attend Cornell University and met my husband. When his friend, himself a refugee from Moldova, came up to me asking “where in Russia are you from?”, my reply was very clear: “I am not from Russia, I am from Ukraine.” My future husband thought this was hilarious, as very few from his Russian speaking circle were actually “from Russia” and this was used generically to really mean “Where in the Soviet Union are you from?” However, for me even back then this was not an appropriate question.
The other story my husband likes to tell is that he first noticed me when I showed up at some “Russian” movie festival soon after arriving in Cornell. When he asked around who I was, he was told not to bother: “She is from Ukraine”, was the answer, and the implication was – she is a strange one for sure.
But yet we clicked. My husband emigrated here in 1992 with his family as a refugee from antisemitism. His mom is a daughter of “rozkulachenykh” – four of her older siblings died in the forced movement of the family to Siberia from the Urals. And his father is a Ukrainian Jew from Dnipro. What connected us and still connects us is values, and not languages, religion, or identities. We both consider the current Russian government criminal. We both would like to see Ukraine freed from corruption. But we do continue speaking Russian at home and when our children were born, we spoke and continue to speak to them in Russian. At the same time, we have not given them a Russian identity. They have visited Ukraine every year since they have been born. They have spent the traumatic summer of 2014 in a summer camp in the Western Ukraine with refugees from Donetsk. My son and I spent the summer of 2019 volunteering for Go Camp in Kharkiv oblast. While their connection to Ukraine is not built on the language, I like to think that it will be long lasting.
After my son Aaron was born in 2004, I realized that I wanted to take a break from the corporate world, and stopped working in Goldman Sachs in the spring of 2005. Many of my friends were getting married and getting pregnant at the time, and we realized that there was no Russian school in the city of New York at the time. And if we want the children to continue to speak the language we speak in the family, and know how to read and write, we need to build some structure for it.
There is a separate question on why preserving Russian was important for us. And I can honestly say that if we had children after 2014, it would not be. But prior to 2014, there was not as much of a dichotomy for me between the language I grew up speaking and my identity, which was very clearly Ukrainian, even prior to 2014.
I organized the school with three friends, two of whom immigrated from Ukraine in the 1980s with their parents as Jewish refugees, and one who came from St Petersburg in the early 90s.
The school is a private business, not an NGO, and is fully funded by tuition. We have never taken a penny from the Russian government or a Russian oligarch, and this is by choice. Neither I nor my partners were comfortable with the Russian government involvement even prior to 2014. This is not to say that the Russian government has not approached us in one way or another or tried to work with us. We have always refused the offers and stayed the course. We are a school of Russian language, not a Russian school. We teach the language, not the politics. When we start exploring the history, we shy away from contemporary style patriotic history, and instead explore the topics more relevant to american families attending our school. One of the books that we read with twelve year olds explores the issue of antisemitism in the Soviet Union, and the other, Elchin’s “Breaking Stalin’s nose” is about a child that is left an orphan because of Stalin’s purges.
I was approached with a proposition to join the Board of the Joseph Brodsky Fellowship Fund in 2013 and came fully on board in 2014. I joined the board as I was quite impressed with the people on the board and because I agree with the mission of supporting those Russian artists that build the bridges with European culture and western values. Amond my fellow board members was venerable Bob Silvers, an editor of New York Review of Books, a universally admired person.
I was not aware of Brodsky’s poem about Ukraine when I joined the board but found out about it shortly after. I have explored the circumstances around writing this poem with Ann Kjellberg, Brodsky’s literary executor, and I hope to eventually be able to foster a discussion about this poem in Brodsky’s legacy with the involvement of the Ukrainian intellectual community.
Everyone on the board has been very supportive of Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, and I do not have any reason to think that Brodsky today would have felt differently.
There were also some stark intersections between our Fellowship recipients and Ukraine. Elena Fanailova, a major Russian poet, and Radio Freedom host, is very vocal about her position. She has spent some of her fellowship translating Serhiy Zhadan into Russian. Boris Khersonsky, who as many of you know, is a Ukrainian poet based in Odesa, is also a Fellow. I have met Boris through the Fund and hosted a discussion with him in 2014 where we mostly spoke about Maidan and the situation in Ukraine.
I first met Zhadan through the Joseph Brodsky Fellowship Fund. We have hosted an evening with him for the NY literary world. Bob Silvers came and asked him to write for NYRB. The Head of the US Poetry Foundation was there as well as some other American poets and writers.
Joseph Brodsky Fellowship Fund has never taken money from Russian government. In the last couple of years, their support has been coming from Zimin Foundation, a fantastic organization with a record of supporting exiles from Russia.
As for many of us, the last part of the transformation of my identity happened during the Maidan and years that followed. In 2014 I protested annexation of Crimea in front of the Russian Consulate, I posted obsessively in social media, and I also discovered a new organization coming together during the Maidan, called Razom. I quietly supported some of their initiatives and watched in awe how passionate and organized this group of people was.
It was not until 2017 that I finally met some Razomtsi and organized a fundraising event with them benefiting Yara Arts. I then helped to organize yet another event that year with Slava Vakarchuk. With every event and every project, I met more and more wonderful young and passionate people that have the same goal that I have and that represent modern Ukraine in all of its diversity. This finally felt like home for my Ukrainian identity here in New York. I am proud to join the Board of this organization and to contribute to unlocking the potential of Ukraine.
The safer-at-home mode requests a different way of Razom meetings. As a part of the Emergency Response we have organized a series of webinars to cover various burning topics – from the basics of the coronavirus, to legal support to those “got stuck” because of quarantine and closed borders, to q&a with the one, who has experienced the travel back to Ukraine during this time.
We no longer could invite all our friends and volunteers to the office or a face-to-face meeting, but we still had to share essential information about the ongoing situation around COVID-19. That’s how the webinar series “Про коронавірус зрозумілою мовою” (Сoronavirus. Explained) has started. And the first three webinars showed the pandemic from three different standpoints:
– by Nataliya Smolynets, an infectious disease doctor (part 1 & part 2); – by Iryna Kit, a Mount Sinai Hospital nurse, NYC (recording); – and by our Razom volunteer Dr. Olya Yarychkivska, science of genetics, who explained the up-to-date scientific research of coronavirus and shared some useful additional resources and links – see below (recording).
Further, we have had two webinars with our own Iryna Mazur, who shared the latest news and essential information for many Ukrainians who unfortunately got their travels postponed due to the closed borders, and quarantine measures in both countries (Ukraine and the US). You can find the recording here.
The final webinar was with Andriy Polishchuk, a Co-Pilot Project participant, who happened to be in the US for his neurosurgery internship, and had to leave because of the overall shutdown. Andriy shared his experience during the internship and his return trip to Ukraine and the quarantine measures (recording).
We are incredibly grateful to our speakers and presenters for their time, for the shared knowledge, so much needed at these challenging times! Big thanks also go to Roman Smolynets, Anastasiia Rybytska and Dora Chomiak for helping behind the scenes of the webinars. And thanks to all of you who joined the webinar and asked questions!
The first CheerUp packages were delivered to our amazing Ukrainian community on Friday! Together we brought a few of much-needed smiles to Brooklyn and Staten Island.
On May 5th, we devoted the special GivingTuesdayNow initiative to help the community that’s in the global epicenter of the pandemic: NYC. We are preparing Care Packages that will both cheer up Ukrainians in New York with a token of our care and appreciation and support local Ukrainian-based businesses that are suffering because of the quarantine measures. Join our volunteer team and donate today.
The Giving Tuesday charity event dedicated to Veterans Stipends that took place in Kyiv this December collected 80,500 UAH, which explicitly shows that Ukrainians are supportive of and ready for the global movement and tradition of charitable nights.
There’s only one place in New York City where you can find such a diverse, motivated group of people coming together to meet, learn, and discuss projects impacting Ukrainians worldwide. That place is the Razom Annual Meeting.
In August 2019, representatives from all Razom Partner organizations met up in Kharkiv for the first time. Volunteers from many organizations spent 2 days working together: swapping stories and sharing expertise.
You can mail a check to 140 2nd. Ave., Suite 305, New York, NY, 10003
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Oblast Competitions
In 2018 we’re planning to cover expenses for 30 teams (6 people per team) at Oblast STEM competitions. Total Budget is $4500
Ruslan Batytskyi
Director, writer and cinematographer with three completed award-winning shorts as well as a feature documentary in post-production. After starting his filmmaker career at 2009, Ruslan brings his skills in project management, process analysis and systems models (received during obtaining MA in cybernetics 2003-2008) and applies them to the creative thinking and artistic thought-processes of film. He also holds BA in Film and Television directing (from the Kyiv National University of theatre, cinema and television by Karpenko-Karyi).
“A chance to participate in The Co-Pilot project it’s an amazing opportunity to help others and to tell the story that will engage and inspire people around the world”
2017 Trip Itinerary
We are gearing up for our 2017 Mission trip. It’ll be a 3-month adventure during which we plan to work with neurosurgeons from several centers from all around the country. Dr.Tomycz has also been invited to deliver an address at the annual Ukrainian Neurosurgery Conference 2017 in Kharkiv.
May 20: arrive in Kyiv, Ukraine
May 22-26: meet with area surgeons at participating centers
May 29- June 9: two week master class with Igor Kurilets MD at the International Neurosurgery Center
June 12-13: Visit to Medical Institute of Sumy State University
June 14-16: Ukrainian Neurosurgery Conference 2017 in Kharkiv
June 19-23: one week course and master class operating in complex spine and craniocervical with Ukrainian spinal surgeons and trainees from Romadanov Institute and International Neurosurgery Center
June 24-July 7: Come back to United States for two weeks
July 10-21: two week master class with Dr. Schlegov at the Neurovascular Institute
July 24-August 4: two week master class in pediatric neurosurgery with surgeons at Lviv Children’s Hospital
August 5-18: travel to out-lying centers of excellence (Stryii, Ivano-Frankivsk, Odesa)
August 21-31: operate with surgeons at Central Military Hospital and International Neurosurgery Center in Kyiv
September 15: leave Ukraine for United States
Surgical Mentors and Medical Support Staff
The best way to train surgeons is by providing hands-on mentorship and assistance in the operating room. One of the primary goals of the Co-Pilot Project is the continued recruitment of high quality surgeons from United States and Canada to spend time with Ukrainian counterparts, consulting on patients and performing procedures.
Surgical Mentors traveling to Ukraine
Jefferson Miley, MD – neurointerventionalist
Jonathan Forbes, MD – skull base neurosurgeon
Matthew Geck, MD – orthopedic spine surgeon
Not all of the healthcare volunteers will be able to travel to Ukraine but they still will play an important role from home. Utilizing contemporary technology, including live streaming of surgeries and communication via social media the medical support staff will advice and mentor Ukrainian neurosurgeons as they confront difficult cases.
Medical Support Staff
Bido Patel, MD – neuroradiologist
Chandra Krishnan, MD – neuropathologist
Ginger Harrod, MD – neuro-oncologist
Advisory Staff
Tim George, MD – pediatric neurosurgeon
Jim Rose, MD – vascular neurosurgeon
Ryan Murdoch, MD – orthopedic spine surgeon
Patrick Combs, MD – craniofacial surgeon
Nestor Tomycz, MD – functional neurosurgeon
Aaron Stayman, MD – vascular neurologist
Jim Rutka – pediatric neurosurgeon
Ben Warf – pediatric neurosurgeon
Participating Centers in Ukraine Page
Since our exploratory trip in 2016 we have identified a cohort of motivated and talented surgeons who are hungry for additional instruction and eager for collaboration.
Igor Kurilets, MD (International Neurosurgery Center)
Ivan Protsenko, MD (Romadanov Institute)
Kostiantyn Kostiuk, MD (Romadanov Institute)
Vitali Ganjuk, MD (Central Military Hospital, Kyiv)
Taras Mykytyn, MD (Lviv Children’s Hospital)
Dmytro Shcheglov, MD (Neurovascular Institute)
Luke Tomycz, MD
Dr. Luke Tomycz is the newest addition to the pediatric neurosurgical team at Dell Children’s Medical Center. Dr. Tomycz finished first in his high school class of over 200 students and attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA where he double-majored in biology and chemical engineering. He accepted the prestigious Dean’s Full-Tuition Scholarship to attend medical school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he first developed an interest in neurosurgery. After medical school, he began his formal neurosurgical training at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN where he trained under the late Noel Tulipan, MD, a pioneer in fetal neurosurgery for myelomeningocele. During his seven-year residency, he spent two years obtaining an in-folded fellowship in endovascular surgery, becoming proficient in the treatment of aneurysms, AVMs, Moya-Moya syndrome, and complex dural AV fistulae of adults and children. After this, Dr. Tomycz spent an additional year at Seattle Children’s Hospital performing a large volume of complex epilepsy surgery with Jeff Ojemann, MD. Following an exhaustive job search, Dr.Tomycz was attracted to Austin as the city was in the process of launching a new medical school at the University of Texas.
Dr. Tomycz specializes in all aspects of pediatric neurosurgery including brain tumors, epilepsy, Chiari malformation, tethered cord syndrome, CSF shunting, and intracranial endoscopy. As one of the only dual-trained, pediatric and endovascular neurosurgeons in the country, he is particularly interested in Moya-Moya, brain aneurysms and AVMs, arteriovenous fistulae, and other complex neurovascular disorders in children as well as adults. His research interests include the use of engineering innovations to improve treatments for hydrocephalus and he has published on a wide variety of neurosurgical topics. Outside the operating room, Dr. Tomycz enjoys playing guitar and hiking in the mountains. He has travelled extensively to perform neurosurgery and take part in short-term medical mission work – in Cuba, Kenya, Honduras, Ecuador, and Ukraine.
Dr. Tomycz grew up with four grandparents who told stories of their youth and taught their grandchildren the language of their homeland – Ukraine. His parents were both born in refugee camps following the second world war, and came to this country in the early 1950s with virtually nothing. His father excelled in academics and went into medicine, and both Luke and his brother Nestor followed suit, pursuing a career in neurosurgery. During a long period of study and training that lasted more than 15 years, Luke resolved to return to the homeland of his grandparents and provide the kind of high quality care that children receive in the United States.
Mariya Soroka
In 2014 at the peak of protests in the Maidan, Mariya joined several fellow Ukrainians living in New York City to create Razom, a young, energetic, and progressive start-up which seeks to amplify the voice of Ukraine to an American audience. An active member of the board, she is responsible for organizing cultural events as well as cooperating with government representatives, activists, and various civic groups and human rights organizations in support of Ukraine’s quest for democracy.
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Mariya is also heavily involved with fundraising for Razom’s projects via crowdsourcing, charity events, and online petitions. After graduating from Penn State University with a BA in Advertising and Public Relations and a dual minor in Entrepreneurship and International Studies, Mariya spent over 5 years in Manhattan working within the content marketing industry. She believes in the enormous potential of dedicated volunteers around the world working to rebuild Ukraine one project at a time.
Mariana Magala
Mariana Magala was born in Lviv, Ukraine. She graduated from The University of Chicago in 2013 and holds a B.A. in Economics and Slavic Languages and Literature. Currently, Mariana is a Strategic Analytics Manager at Interline Brands (subsidiary of The Home Depot) in Jacksonville, Florida. She specializes in analytics, business strategy, and nonprofit development. Mariana was the co-chair of a pro-bono consulting group for nonprofits in Chicago for 3 years and is currently the treasurer for a young professionals group at MOSH (Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville).
Mariana joined Razom’s Neurosurgical initiative in 2016. She is very excited to collaborate with the team and develop the initiative into a highly successful program.