AAUS was founded in December 1989 in Cambridge, MA, on the initiative of George Grabowicz and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI), as the American affiliate of the International Association for Ukrainian Studies (IAUS, or MAU in Ukrainian), which was founded in June 1989 in Naples, Italy. AAUS Presidents have included: John Fizer (1989-1991), Omeljan Pritsak (1991-1993), Natalie Kononenko (1993-1995), Assya Humesky (1995-1997), Michael Naydan (1997-2000), Robert DeLossa (2000-2002), Myroslava Znayenko (2002-2006), Alexandra Hrycak (2006-2009), Vitaly Chernetsky (2009-2018), and Oxana Shevel (2018-present).
