She is a Ukraine-born, Scotland-based art historian and researcher; she is a SGSAH-funded PhD Сandidate at the University of St Andrews and a Researcher at The New Centre for Research & Practice. Volochniuk's scholarly pursuits focus on the intersection of history of photography and memory studies. She had her works published in Korydor, Your Art, ArtsLooker and Ukraine verstehen.

Her ongoing research project delves into the personal archive of her grandfather Oleksii Shepeliuk. The archive has never been studied and will provide critical insights into Soviet-era industrial history and heritage, which exists today in a grey zone between abandonment and extinction. Oleksii Shepeliuk was a photographer and editor for the Kyiv Lepse Factory newspaper from 1963-1970. His corpus of work, consisting of photography, journalism, and accompanying notes, offers a rare glimpse into the practices of industrial self-documentation and the intersections of familial and public histories.

During her Visiting Doctoral Researcher placement at the Center in 2024, Kateryna will digitize and process her family archive to contribute parts of it to the Urban Media Archive. She will conduct comparative, visual, and historical analyses using the Center’s collections to trace the role of the photographer in industrial communities, the genre of photo-accusations, and the role of family archives. The study will also include a presentation of part of the project and a workshop.