Yunxiang Yan is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His work focuses on China and Cultural Anthropology , with specific expertise in Economic Anthropology , Family and Kinship , and Individualization . Education: Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University (1993). Yan’s research explores the intersection of social change , moral theory , and family dynamics in modern China. His ethnographic studies in rural villages provide foundational insights into exchange theory and cultural globalization . Recent publications analyze food safety , medical ethics , and moral crises in China, reflecting his interdisciplinary approach combining anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. Articles span themes like intergenerational intimacy , political oppression , and networked social structures . Scientific Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship Levenson Prize-winning Research Yan’s work bridges local Chinese studies with global anthropological discourse. He has held positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Johns Hopkins University, and UCLA since 1996. His career reflects a commitment to documenting the lives of ordinary people, rooted in his early experiences as an expelled villager during Maoist China. Contact: yan@anthro.ucla.edu
Professor David A Palmer is a distinguished academic jointly appointed by the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, where he has been teaching since 2008. His interdisciplinary work bridges anthropology, sociology, religious studies, and Sinology, establishing him as a leading scholar in Chinese religious studies and transnational religious movements. Palmer's educational background includes a PhD in Anthropology of Religion from Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne, Paris), an MPhil in Clinical Psychology/Medical Anthropology from University of Paris-VIII, and a BA in Anthropology and East Asian Studies from McGill University. His scholarly contributions span multiple disciplines with particular emphasis on Chinese religious traditions and their global manifestations. His research interests focus on the anthropology and sociology of spirituality and religion, especially Daoism and Chinese religion; religion in modern and contemporary China; inter-Asian and transnational religious circulations; Baháʼí Faith; civil society, volunteering, philanthropy, community engagement; and cultural and religious interactions on the Belt and Road. His work examines how religious traditions navigate modernity, state power, and globalization, with particular attention to the Belt and Road Initiative's cultural dimensions. Palmer's publications reveal a consistent focus on understanding Chinese religious traditions within broader theoretical frameworks of social theory, civil society, and transnational religious networks. His articles demonstrate how Chinese religious practices and institutions both adapt to and shape contemporary social and political contexts, with particular attention to the intersections of spirituality, modernity, and state-society relations. Joseph Levenson Award of the Association for Asian Studies PROSE award of the American Publishers' Association Francis L.K. Hsu Award of the Society for East Asian Anthropology Edward Bruner Prize for the best book in Anthropology of Tourism HK Research Grants Council RGC Research Fellowship (2021-2025) HK Research Grants Council Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship (2019) Palmer currently leads multiple significant research projects including 'Global China, Local Cultures: Chinese Modernity and Soft Power on the Belt and Road' (RGC Research Fellowship, 2021-2025), 'Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road' (CRF, 2019-2023), 'Rituals and Manuscripts of the Lanten Yao (Laos)' (GRF, 2021-2024), and 'Religious Cosmopolitanism in China, 1895-1927' (GRF, 2021-2024). He leads the 'Asian Religious Connections' research cluster at HKIHSS, co-convenes the 'Culture, Community and Social Equity' research cluster in the HKU Faculty of Social Sciences, and serves as co-convenor of the HKU Anthropology Research Network. As President of the East Asian Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, he plays a key role in advancing scholarly understanding of religion in the region.
Adam Hollowell is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Program in Education at Duke University, where he also serves as Senior Research Associate at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and Director of the Inequality Studies Minor. His teaching spans ethics, inequality studies, and history across Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics, Sanford School of Public Policy, and Department of History. Hollowell holds a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh (2009). His research focuses on inequality, higher education, public policy, and ethics, with notable work on pandemic impacts, telemedicine in education, and reproductive health access during crises. In Inequality Studies , Hollowell emphasizes understanding policies to drive social change, as highlighted in recent media coverage. His publications explore topics like student behavior shifts during the pandemic, telemedicine adoption in universities, and James Baldwin’s ethical challenges. He is a finalist for the Judith Deckers Prize (2024). Professionally, Hollowell leads projects such as Bass Connections on college contraception access and Story+ initiatives. His work bridges academia and public engagement, addressing systemic inequities through interdisciplinary approaches.
Walid Magdy is a Professor at the School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh, where he is a faculty member at the Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation (ILCC). He holds a PhD from Dublin City University's School of Computing and has been a faculty fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. With substantial industry experience, he has worked for Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), Microsoft, and IBM, where he filed nine patents. His research spans computational social science and natural language processing. In computational social science, he focuses on social content analysis, political bias detection, polarization, and users' behavior analysis/prediction, with particular attention to understudied communities. His natural language processing work centers on social applications including sentiment analysis, sarcasm detection, and hate-speech identification, with specialized expertise in Arabic and its dialects as well as Persian. Professor Magdy's recent publications demonstrate a consistent focus on Arabic language processing and social media analysis, with growing attention to cultural factors in NLP systems. His work bridges computational methods with social science questions, particularly regarding misinformation, cultural differences in online behavior, and the impact of platform policies on diverse linguistic communities. He has expanded his research to include Persian language processing and continues to explore social dynamics across different cultural contexts. His significant contributions have been recognized with multiple awards: Best Demo Award for TwiXplorer at CSCW 2024 Outstanding Paper Award at ACL 2024 Best Paper Award Runner-up at SocInfo 2022 Best Paper Award at WANLP-EMNLP 2022 Best Paper Award at AIRS 2015 Best Dataset Award at ICWSM 2013 Professor Magdy serves as an editor for Springer's Social Network Analysis and Mining journal and has held leadership roles in major conferences including ACL 2023, ArabicNLP 2023, ICWSM 2022, and ASONAM 2022. He has co-organized numerous shared tasks focused on Arabic language processing and social media analysis, contributing significantly to community resources and benchmarks. He founded and directs the Social Media Analysis and Support for Humanity (SMASH) research group at the University of Edinburgh, which has organized the Summer School in Computational Social Science (SICSS-Edinburgh) in 2022, 2023, and 2025, training researchers in computational social science methodologies.
Kate Holland is an Associate Professor and Acting Associate Chair (Graduate) at the University of Toronto, specializing in 19th-century Russian literature and its cultural contexts. Her work focuses on the history of the novel, Russian literary theory, and the interplay between Russian and European literary traditions. She teaches courses such as 'The Golden Age of Russian Literature' and 'Dostoevsky in Literary Criticism and Theory.' Dr. Holland earned her PhD from Yale University (2004) and a BA/MA from the University of Cambridge (1998). Her research explores themes like genre evolution in Dostoevsky’s works, the publication culture of 19th-century Russian periodicals, and the theoretical frameworks of Historical Poetics. Her recent publications include A Dostoevskii Companion: Texts and Contexts (2018) and The Novel in the Age of Disintegration (2013), analyzing Dostoevsky’s engagement with genre and modernity. Her scholarship frequently examines narrative form, cultural history, and the intersection of literature with philosophical and religious thought.
Fabio Franceschi is an Associate Professor of Ecclesiastical Law, European Ecclesiastical Law, and Law and Religion at the Faculty of Law, Sapienza University of Rome. He teaches courses including Diritto Ecclesiastico (Ecclesiastical Law), Diritto Ecclesiastico Europeo (European Ecclesiastical Law), and Law and Religion. His institutional affiliation is with the Department of Legal and Economic Studies at Sapienza University of Rome. Franceschi's research interests focus on ecclesiastical law and the relationship between law and religion in contemporary society, the history of relations between State and Church in Italy (particularly in pre- and post-unification periods), canon law, and intercultural law. His work examines religious freedom, secularism, religious confessions, and the legal frameworks governing religious institutions in increasingly multicultural and multireligious societies. His publication record includes over 60 academic works in Italian and English, with his most notable contribution being the 'Compendium of Ecclesiastical Law,' which has gone through multiple editions. His recent scholarship addresses contemporary issues such as religious freedom in MENA countries, end-of-life decisions from religious perspectives, and the financial operations of religious institutions. Franceschi is actively involved in research groups including 'DiReSom (Law and Religion in Multicultural Societies)' and the executive committee of the interdisciplinary research center 'ORFECT - Observatory on Religious Freedom in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.' He also coordinates the research group 'Tradizioni religiose, diritti umani e diritto interculturale' (Religious Traditions, Human Rights and Intercultural Law). He serves on the scientific committee of the legal journal 'SudEuropa. Quadrimestrale di civiltà e cultura europea' and the editorial board of 'Il Diritto ecclesiastico.' His teaching materials for attending students are available on the university's E-Learning platform, and he maintains regular office hours for student consultations.
Mulki Al-Sharmani is a Professor at the University of Helsinki, affiliated with the Faculty of Arts and the Department of Cultures (specializing in Middle Eastern Studies). Her research focuses on Islamic feminism, Muslim family law, gender studies, and transnational migrant communities. She examines how religious texts and practices intersect with legal frameworks and social dynamics in contexts like Egypt, Finland, and the Somali diaspora. Her work includes analyzing Islamic legal reform, gender equality in marriage, and the lived experiences of Muslim women. Key publications explore Qur'anic hermeneutics, the role of feminist activism in legal change, and the wellbeing of transnational families. She has contributed to projects like 'Reclaiming Adl and Ihsan in Muslim Marriage' and co-edited volumes on Islamic ethics and family law reform. Research interests: Islamic feminist theory, Middle Eastern legal traditions, transnational family dynamics, and religious praxis. Recent articles highlight themes like Qur'anic ethics of marriage, legal pluralism in Finland, and the political dimensions of Egyptian family law reform. Active in international conferences, including presentations at SOAS University of London, American University in Cairo, and panels on Islamic law and gender at venues like MESA and EASR. Involved in interdisciplinary initiatives such as the Africa Research Forum and Musawah's global network for equality in Muslim family laws.
Prof. Dr. Olena Palko is a historian specializing in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Ukraine. She holds the SNSF Professorship at the University of Basel's Department of History, focusing on East European History. Her research emphasizes Soviet minority policies, cultural politics, and national identity formation in interwar Ukraine. She is a leading scholar with notable works including Making Ukraine Soviet (2021), awarded the 2023 Alexander Nove Prize. Her current SNF-funded project, Red Tower of Babel , examines Soviet minority experiments in Ukraine. Education: PhD from University of East Anglia (2017); Kandydat nauk from National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (2013). Research Interests: Soviet nationality policy, minority history, Ukrainian twentieth-century history, transnational border dynamics. Her work bridges archival analysis with transnational perspectives, addressing contested borderlands between Poland and the USSR. Key publications include co-edited volumes like Making Ukraine (2022) and Ukraine's Many Faces (2023). She actively contributes to academic governance roles, including co-convening the BASEES Study Group for Minority History and serving on the Scientific Advisory Council of the Council of Europe's history observatory.
Jonathan R. Lyon is Professor of History of the High and Late Middle Ages at the Institute for Austrian Historical Research within the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna. He maintains office hours on Thursdays from 14:00-16:00 (available via Zoom by appointment) and can be contacted at jonathan.lyon@univie.ac.at or +43-1-4277-27297. His educational background includes: B.A. in History and Latin, Colgate University (1997, Summa cum laude) Exchange year at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (1996) M.A. in History, University of Notre Dame (1999) Ph.D. in History, University of Notre Dame (2005) Lyon's research centers on the Holy Roman Empire during the High and Late Middle Ages, European political and social structures (1000-1500), the evolution of statehood, corruption mechanisms, medieval kinship systems, and gender dynamics with particular emphasis on masculinity. His work examines how political power, social networks, and religious institutions intersected in shaping medieval governance and community life, often challenging traditional narratives about medieval state formation through comparative analysis of German and Hungarian contexts. Analysis of his 15 most recent publications reveals consistent chronological focus on the 12th-15th centuries with increasing attention to corruption, gender, and monastic institutions since 2015. His scholarship demonstrates methodological diversity through charter analysis, prosopography, and comparative institutional studies, while maintaining thematic continuity in examining power dynamics between nobility, monarchy, and religious entities across Central Europe. His major scientific awards include: 2024 Otto Gründler Book Prize for Corruption, Protection and Justice in Medieval Europe: A Thousand-Year History 2017 John Nicholas Brown Prize for Princely Brothers and Sisters: The Sibling Bond in German Politics, 1100–1250 Lyon has secured prestigious research funding including the Fulbright Fellowship (2000-2001), DAAD Research Fellowship (2007), FWF Lise Meitner Fellowship (2013-2014), and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship (2017-2018). He served as Academic Director of the Berlin Consortium for German Studies (2012-2013) and currently advises the Manchester Medieval Sources Series. His ongoing projects include editing charters of Quedlinburg abbesses and authoring an introductory text on the medieval Holy Roman Empire.
Patrick Overeem is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), specializing in Political Science and Public Administration. He holds a PhD from Leiden University (2010) and advanced degrees in Public Administration and Political Science from the same institution. His research focuses on democratic theory, value pluralism, statesmanship, and EU governance. He is affiliated with the Multi-layered Governance (MLG) research group and serves on editorial boards, including the American Review of Public Administration . Overeem's work emphasizes ethical leadership, compromise in politics, and the interplay between democracy and pluralism. Key contributions include his 2012 book on the politics-administration dichotomy and his neo-Aristotelian analyses of political virtue. He has led projects like the EU-funded RECONNECT initiative (2018–2022), exploring democratic reconciliation in Europe. He advises Dutch parliamentary integrity committees and contributes to public debates on ethics and governance through media engagements. His research bridges classical political theory with contemporary challenges, addressing topics like postliberalism, moral dilemmas in governance, and constitutional frameworks. Overeem teaches courses on political theory, democratic systems, and the history of political thought, fostering critical engagement with ethical and institutional dimensions of power.
Andrew Connor is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Ancient History at Monash University. He specializes in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, papyrology, and the social and religious history of ancient Egyptian communities. His research focuses on Egyptian temples during the Roman period, ancient economic practices, and the editing and publication of documentary papyri. Connor has particular expertise in the Fayum depression and Dakhleh Oasis regions. Connor's publications demonstrate a consistent focus on Egyptian religious institutions, economic systems, and textual evidence from archaeological sites. His recent work includes publications on temple administration, Greek papyri, and digital archaeology. He has received multiple teaching awards including the Faculty Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (2017), Faculty Citation for Overseas Programs (2018), and Vice Chancellor's Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (2018). Connor teaches courses on Greek and Roman history, archaeology, and ancient languages at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He serves as Honours Coordinator for the School of Philosophical, Historical, and International Studies.
Jarrod Ray Hore is a Scientia Lecturer in the School of Humanities & Languages at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, and Co-Director of the New Earth Histories Research Program. His work explores environmental history, settler colonialism, and the intersections of science, geology, and cultural landscapes. Hore’s research focuses on landscape photography’s role in shaping colonial projects, earthquake geology, and the logistics of the natural history trade. He has published widely in journals like the Pacific Historical Review and Australian Historical Studies, and his award-winning book *Visions of Nature* (2022) examines how photography reinforced settler territoriality. His research interests span environmental history, transnational history, the history of science, and colonial studies. Key areas include the history of settler colonialism in Australia, New Zealand, and North America, as well as the cultural and scientific dimensions of geological exploration. Hore actively supervises HDR and honours students in environmental history, colonial history, and the history of photography. His awards include the Marilyn Lake Prize (2023) and Donna Coates Prize (2022), with shortlist recognitions for prestigious history awards. Beyond academia, he teaches courses like *A House Divided: The Making of Modern America* (ARTS2150), emphasizing U.S. histories of race, class, and global engagement. Hore’s work bridges environmental humanities and colonial studies, analyzing how visual and scientific practices reinforced imperial and settler agendas. His current projects explore the material and logistical networks underpinning natural history collections and the epistemologies of colonial geology.
Professor Maarten Prak is a distinguished scholar of Economic and Social History at Utrecht University, where he has been a faculty member since 1992. He is affiliated with the Faculty of Humanities and the Department of History and Art History. Prak serves on the governing board of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and All European Academies (ALLEA), having previously chaired the Humanities Board of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) from 2014-2016. Prak's research spans social history, urban history, guild systems, citizenship, global history, and early modern European history, with particular focus on the Dutch Golden Age. His scholarly trajectory evolved from local Dutch social history to national history, then to comparative European history, and finally to global historical perspectives. His work demonstrates how urban citizenship, guild structures, and social organization shaped political development across Europe. His publication record reveals consistent engagement with long-term historical processes, particularly examining how citizenship evolved from urban contexts to national frameworks. His research connects economic structures with political institutions, showing how guilds, urban governance, and social hierarchies influenced the development of modern political systems across Europe. Member Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2008) Teacher of the Year, Universiteit Utrecht (2014) Winner of the 2015 book award of the American Ceramic Circle Winner of the 2019 Prix Dix-Septième Siècle Prak has maintained an active teaching career alongside his research, earning recognition as Teacher of the Year in 2014. His academic governance responsibilities have included serving as research director for his department and faculty, chairing the Humanities Board of NWO (2014-2016), and participating in the governing boards of KNAW and ALLEA. He has organized numerous international workshops and conferences and has been a visiting scholar at prestigious institutions including the University of Cambridge, London School of Economics, and École des Hautes Études in Paris.
Hillard von Thiessen is a full Professor of Early Modern History at the Historisches Institut of Universität Rostock, where he has held the chair since Summer Semester 2013. He served as Dean of the Philosophischen Fakultät from Winter Semester 2018/19 to Summer Semester 2022 and was previously acting chair at Universität zu Köln (2007-2012) and Universität Rostock (2012-2013). Currently, he is also a Fellow at the Käte-Hamburger-Kolleg "Einheit und Vielfalt im Recht" at the University of Münster. Professor von Thiessen completed his Magister Artium in 1995 at Freiburg with a thesis on witch hunts in Freiburg (1632-1677), for which he received the Waldseemüllerpreis in 1997. He earned his doctorate in 2001 with research on Capuchin friars as a reform order between confessionalization and everyday culture. In 2007, he completed his habilitation at the University of Bern with a study on cross-border patronage and diplomacy between Spain and the Papal States during Pope Paul V's pontificate (1605-1621). His research focuses on European Early Modern History, particularly international relations, norm competition, corruption and patronage cultures in the pre-modern era, religiosity, and the political culture of Habsburg Spain. His work often employs actor-centered perspectives to examine how individuals navigated complex normative frameworks during the Early Modern period. Recent publications demonstrate his interest in ambiguity as a historical phenomenon and how societies managed competing values and norms. His scholarly output reveals a consistent trajectory examining power structures, diplomatic networks, and cultural frameworks in Early Modern Europe, with particular attention to the intersection of religious, political, and social norms. The publications show increasing sophistication in analyzing how ambiguity functioned as a productive force rather than merely a problem to be solved in Early Modern governance and social relations. Waldseemüllerpreis der Universität Freiburg (1997) Professor von Thiessen has supervised numerous doctoral candidates through his habilitation and professorial positions, though specific student names aren't listed in the available documentation. His research has been supported by prestigious grants including the Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung post-doc fellowship, THEORIA Kurt von Fritz Science Program funding from the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Ministry, and Swiss National Science Foundation support for collaborative research projects. His current research activities are centered at the Historisches Institut of Universität Rostock, with additional collaborative work through the Käte-Hamburger-Kolleg at the University of Münster, where he explores legal frameworks and norm competition in historical perspective. His ongoing monograph project "Das Zeitalter der Ambiguität" represents a significant contribution to understanding how Early Modern societies managed conflicting norms and values.
Georges Kostakiotis is a Senior Lecturer at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) in Paris, France, specializing in Modern Greek language and literature. His academic appointment falls under CNU Section 15, covering Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew and other languages and literature. He serves as Head of the TEMPO course for Modern Greek and teaches across multiple levels from L1 through L3, including text study, written and oral practice of Greek, Modern Greek thematic courses, specialized Greek text corpora, and technical translation at M1 and M2 levels. Dr. Kostakiotis's research focuses on the intersection of language pedagogy and literary studies. He investigates teaching oral communication from both practical and theoretical perspectives, examining how literary texts function as effective pedagogical tools in foreign language classrooms. His work develops specialized strategies for teaching Greek to Latin-speaking audiences, leveraging linguistic connections while addressing acquisition challenges. Additionally, he explores literary representations of politics and urban worlds, situating Greek literature within broader European and Balkan contexts through the CREE (Centre de Recherches Euro-Méditerranéennes et Euro-asiatiques) research center. Analysis of Dr. Kostakiotis's publication record from 2009-2024 reveals consistent scholarly engagement with Greek literature's relationship to Balkan cultures and historical contexts. His work demonstrates particular interest in how Greek literature addresses themes of foreignness, crisis, and identity through comparative analysis with other Balkan literary traditions. His research spans pedagogical approaches to language teaching, literary analysis of Greek texts, historical examinations of Greek literature, and cultural studies of Greek communities in the Balkans. Dr. Kostakiotis has been instrumental in organizing numerous academic events that bridge language pedagogy and literary scholarship. He has coordinated multiple conferences and study days focused on language teaching methodology, including sessions on oral communication techniques, vocabulary acquisition strategies, and assessment approaches. In the realm of literature and cultural studies, he has organized scholarly gatherings examining Greek-Romanian relations, Phanariote history, women's perspectives in Greek literature, and urban studies with particular attention to cities like Thessaloniki and Alexandria. His collaborative work, including co-edited volumes on Greek-Romanian relations, demonstrates his commitment to fostering academic dialogue across national and disciplinary boundaries.
