Silk Roads Youth Research Grant

Xia Chen is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy and Director of the Editorial Department for the Journal of Philosophical Trends and Chinese Philosophical Almanac at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing. Specializing in Chinese Philosophy and Religions, particularly Daoism, she has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, SOAS, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Science Po Bordeaux, and a Fulbright Scholar at Brown University. She taught the Chinese Philosophy course at the Council on International Educational Exchange for several years and served as the chairperson for the section of Daoist philosophy at the 24th WCP in Beijing. She is a Member of the Executive Committee of the International Council of Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH) and is the author of many works having contributed hundreds of articles to a number of journals both in Chinese and English.

Professor Peter Frankopan is a historian, writer, and Professor of Global History at Oxford University, UK. He specialises in the history of the Byzantine Empire, the Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Persia/Iran, Central and South Asia, and China and has authored numerous books, including "The Silk Roads: A New History of the World" (2015).

Professor Meenakshi Bharat is an Associate Professor at the University of Delhi, India where she teaches the New Literatures in English Course to M.A. students. She has held a number of positions within international organizations, including President of the International Federation of Modern Languages and Literatures (FILLM, UNESCO), and Bureau Member of the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences, (CIPSH, UNESCO) 2014-2017.

Prof. Dr. Mustafa Bayram is Dean of the Engineering Faculty and Director of Technopark at the University of Gaziantep. He has previously served as the Director of Technology Transfer Office (TARGET TTO A.Ş.) and the Manager of ULUTEM High Technology and Research Center. His research interests include food history, gastronomy studies, Silk Road studies, the ‘Spice roads’, the migration of foods, and innovation ecosystem design and governance. He has over 25 years of experience in food, tradition, foresight and horizon scanning, and research and analysis for think tanks, public, and private organizations. A visionary and food futurist, he is the author of the book ‘The Future of Food’.  

Dr. Dilorom Karomat (PhD) is a leading researcher at the Institute of Fine Arts, Academy of Sciences, Republic of Uzbekistan. She has been a lecturer at the Tashkent State Conservatoire and a fellow and language teacher in several institutions in India including Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public library in Patna, the Asiatic Society, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies in Kolkata. Prior to this, she was a Postdoctoral Research assistant of an Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project at SOAS University. Her research interests include the musical culture of North Afghanistan, India, Iran, and the Central Asian Republics, as well as Persian and Turkic lexicography and manuscripts on music. She is the editor of the ‘Manuscript Dictionary of the 19th century (Dictionary of Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Hindi and Shushtar dialect in Iran)’ published by Khuda Bakhsh O.P. Library in 2001. She has authored dozens of articles published in English, German, Urdu, Persian, Russian and Uzbek.  

Elena Paskaleva is Assistant Professor in Critical Heritage Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She specialises in the material culture of Central Asia and the Middle East with a focus on the intercultural exchanges along the Silk Roads. She is the author of “Silk Road Cities Documented Through Vintage Photographs, Prints and Postcards” (2019), co-author and editor of “Memory and Commemoration across Central Asia: Texts, Traditions and Practices, 10th-21st Centuries” (Brill, 2023) and “Exchanges along the Silk Roads. Urbanism. Landscape. Architecture” (UNESCO, 2023). Her current research deals with the history and socio-political importance of Timurid architecture. 

Dr Darina Saliba Abi Chedid is the Director of the International Center for Human Sciences (CISH–UNESCO) in Byblos, Lebanon. She is a former professor of Political Science and International Law, and a consultant in Human Rights and Arbitration at Cairo Regional Center for training and arbitration.

Dr. Laura Yerekesheva is a professor at al-Farabi Kazakh National University’s Oriental Faculty; Faculty of History and a research fellow at the UNESCO Category 2 Centre for the Rapprochement of Cultures in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her areas of research interest include identity, the “Other”, the history of art of Central Asia, and cross-cultural and religious encounters between Central and South Asia. She has contributed to a number of UNESCO programmes as an author, expert and consultant.