Natalia Petrovskaia is an assistant professor in Celtic studies at Utrecht University, specialised in medieval (Celtic) literature. She obtained her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2013. For her PhD research, titled Medieval Welsh Perceptions of the Orient, Natalia examined what medieval Welsh writers knew about what they considered ‘the East' and how they depicted it compared to the rest of Europe. She used their literary and historical texts to better understand the evolution of ideas through transmission and translation in the middle ages.

Lida Amiri is an assistant professor of literature studies at Utrecht University, specialised in the literary and linguistic study of diaspora literature. She obtained her PhD in 2020 at the University of Liverpool. For her PhD research, titled Re-thinking World Literature and Diasporic Writing: the Case of Afghanistani Translingual Authors Khaled Hosseini and Atiq Rahimi, Lida examined how the fictional works of two Afghanistani diaspora authors challenged the binary and reductive perspectives on their country determined by the Western media landscape after 9/11.

Flore Janssen is an assistant professor of literature studies at Utrecht University, specialised in political and economic history and literature of the long nineteenth century. She obtained her PhD in Philosophy in 2018 from Birkbeck, University of London. For her PhD research, titled Women Writers, World Problems, and the Working Poor c.1880-1920: Blackleg Work in Literature, Flore examined the way nineteenth century author-activists Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness portrayed heavily exploited ‘blackleg’ workers in their writings, urging consumers to recognise their struggle and inspire political change. 

Richard Calis is an assistant professor in history at Utrecht University, specialised in cultural history of the early modern period (1500-1800). He obtained his PhD in history at Princeton University in the United States in 2020. For his PhD research, titled The Discovery of Ottoman Greece  he focused on the life and works of  Martin Crusius, a sixteenth century scholar who wrote about Ottoman Greece from a Western European perspective. Richard used Crusius to understand how people in the early modern period thought and wrote about cultural and religious differences. 

Jeroen Koch is an assistant professor in cultural and intellectual history at Utrecht University, specialised in political and intellectual history since the enlightenment. He obtained his PhD in 1994 at Utrecht University. For his PhD research, titled Politiek en Moraal: Golo Mann en de Duitse Geschiedenis, Jeroen gave a biographical analysis of the life and works of Golo Mann, a conservative German historian who fled the rise of fascism and was critical of those who sought to contextualize the crimes of nazi-Germany.

Elise van Nederveen-Meerkerk is a professor of history at Utrecht University, specialised in social and economic history. She obtained her PhD in history at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2007. For her PhD research, titled De Draad in Eigen Handen, Elise looked at textile production in the Early Modern Netherlands to provide insight into pre-industrial women’s labor history.