Dr Xu Peng Dr. Xu Peng is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for the Study of Illicit Economies, Violence, and Development (CIVAD) at SOAS University of London.
Dr Vidya Venkat Vidya Venkat has worked in India for over a decade as a journalist in a reputed English newspaper and as a communications consultant in the international development sector.
Ummugulsum Kurukol Ummugulsum is a PhD candidate in Islamic Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her research explores Muslim travel writing across different genres and periods, asking how travellers understood their journeys, explained their motives, and experimented with the language of travel.
Dr Mariano Errichiello Mariano is a scholar of Zoroastrianism with an interest in history, rituals, texts and communities of the modern period.
Jens Augspurger Jens Augspurger is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies and a doctoral fellow of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German Academic Foundation).
Dr Michael W Thomas Michael Thomas is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Ethiopian Screen Worlds on the ERC-funded project “African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies”.
Emeritus Professor John Picton The art and archaeology of Nigeria, masquerade, textile history, 20th-century transformations in the visual culture of sub-Saharan Africa
Emeritus Professor Andrew Gerstle Japanese literature, drama and thought, primarily of the Tokugawa period, with particular interest in Bunraku and Kabuki theatre and the plays of Chikamatsu
Dr Susanne Jaspars Susanne is a Senior Research Fellow at the SOAS Food Studies Centre, and was a Research Associate (RA) at the Centre prior to this.