The Historiana Teams

Dr. Sean A. Wempe is an Associate Professor of Modern European History, California State University--Bakersfield. He is part of the Historiana content team, contributing and editing material. His specialties include the history of imperialism, internationalism, and public health. His first book, Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations was released with Oxford University Press in 2019 and examines how former German colonial officials, missionaries, and settlers used the Mandates System to insert themselves into the new imperialism of the interwar period. His second book, Chronic Disparities: Public Health in Historical Perspective, covering the global history of inequality in public health, was released with Oxford University Press in August 2020.

Francesco Scatigna is a member of Historiana's content team. He lives and works in Brussels. Even though he now works in EU affairs, he has tried to keep his background in history alive via his cooperation with EuroClio and Historiana. Francesco worked for EuroClio's Secretariat in The Hague and in Brussels in 2013, and has subsequently been co-opted to Historiana's Historical Content team in 2014.

Andrea Scionti studied history in Italy (Perugia and Pisa), at the University of Edinburgh and at Emory University, where he received his PhD. His research focused on US and Cold War history, with particular interest in transatlantic relations and cultural diplomacy. He joined the Historical Content Team in 2015 to contribute to Historiana's vision of a transnational and multiperspective approach to history teaching, and has contributed to the development of source collections since then. He currently lives in Brussels, where he works on EU affairs.

Chris Rowe, born in 1941 near Liverpool, studied History in Liverpool, London, Vienna and at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island from which he received a graduate fellowship. After his studies he worked as a History teacher at both Grammar Schools as well as University. He has been the head of the History Department of Wistantley Sixth Form College for twenty-five years and after his retirement in 2002 Chris Rowe became a History consultant, providing in-service training for History teachers in the UK and Europe-wide. Besides his involvement with EuroClio he also works as an international expert for the Council of Europe History projects. For more than thirty years Chris Rowe has been involved in A-level history examinations and until today works as principal examiner. He is author and co-author of several text books and teaching resources that mainly deal with British, American and 20th century Europe.

Dr. Bob Stradling taught modern political history at London University before he moved to Scotland in the 1990s where he was appointed Senior Research Fellow and Director of a multi-disciplinary research unit at the University of Edinburgh. From the mid-1980s he also worked on a part-time basis for the Council of Europe as history education consultant and in that capacity was also actively involved in the planning to establish EuroClio in 1992. He has continued to work with the team at EuroClio ever since. In 2009, having retired from the University, he was invited by EuroClio to join an advisory board to discuss how best to develop a website for history educators, Historiana, and development began in 2010 with Bob as editor-in-chief. He is also the author of Teaching 20th Century European History (2001); Multiperspectivity in History Teaching (2003), joint author (with Chris Rowe) of Critical Moments in Recent European History (2008) and the editor of Crossroads of European History (2008).

Jens Lenders (MEd) studied history at both the HAN University of Applied Sciences and Fontys University of Applied Sciences. He has taught history and social sciences at a secondary school and is now employed as a teacher trainer and lecturer in didactics of history at Fontys University of Applied Sciences.

I was born in 1972 in Ioannina, Epirus, Greece. I graduated from the department of History and Archeology in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1994 and I’ve been living and working in the same city (with small breaks) since then. I hold a MA in Educational studies from the Open University of Cyprus (2015). I work as an upper secondary Greek Language and History teacher and since 2017 I have been Deputy Headmistress of my school, 2nd General Lyceum of Evosmos, Thessaloniki. In 2022 I became school teacher’s mentor. I am a member of AHEG (Association of History Education in Greece), Europeana Network Association (ENA) for Education and Teaching with European Users group (for which I have created several History learning scenarios), PEN Greece and etwinning. I’ve first got involved with EuroClio projects and activities in 2018 in the “Learning to Disagree” project and since then also in several of its activities (e.g. online and on site training seminars, participation in conferences, writing blog articles,etc). Recently I’ve become involved in writing critical literature reviews for several e-magazines in Greece.

Riitta Mikkola (Finland) has graduated from the University of Tampere as a historian and a teacher of history and social studies. She has been teaching in both lower and upper secondary schools since 1994. At the moment she teaches history and social studies in Karakallio School in Espoo. She has been involved with Finnish History Teachers’ association (HTA Finland) since 1998 in different trainings, working groups and representing the association. She was the chairman of the board of HTA Finland and since 2012 she has been the chief editor of the Finnish HTA’s quarterly magazine Kleio. She has been writing the national curricula of history in National Board of education in 2004 and 2014. Riitta has participated in Euroclio activities since 2006 and as a board member 2015-2021. She is interested in languages, controversial issues, different perspectives and interactive teaching methods.

Gijs van Gaans (1976) has studied history and religious sciences at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. After getting his teaching degree in history he has taught history and Latin in high school for several years. He now works as a teacher trainer and lecturer at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Tilburg. He is particularly interested in developing powerful material that trains historical reasoning, especially on sensitive topics. He also does research on historical narratives among young people and the way they use those narratives to give meaning to their lives.

Bridget Martin began teaching history in 2012 and has worked in secondary schools in both Australia and France. Bridget holds a Master in Secondary Teaching and a Master of Arts in History. She has published peer-reviewed papers on history curriculum debates and the use of oral history in the classroom. Bridget has presented teacher professional development at a number of conferences including those of the History Teacher Association of Australia, Teach for Australia, and EuroClio. After a period as a History Teacher in Residence at EuroClio in 2019, Bridget joined the Historiana Teaching and Learning Team where she creates learning activities and leads teacher training workshops and webinars.

Ute was born 1968 in Urach, Germany and finished secondary school in 1989. After that she studied History, English and Italian at the University of Newcastle, UK, and the University of Pisa, Italy, and graduated in 1997. She moved to Cyprus where she has been teaching History at various private schools. In 2012, Ute earned a Masters of Arts in International Relations, and in 2017 she completed a PGCEi from Nottingham University. During her teaching career, she has taught History at a variety of levels covering a wide variety of topics. Currently, she is teaching History and TOK at the IB Diploma level with a focus on 20th century History at the American International School in Nicosia, Cyprus. Since 2017, she is also the Department Head for Social Studies. The school is inclusive and more recently the focus of her work has shifted increasingly to curriculum development and creating inclusive, concept- and inquiry-based teaching resources. She is also co-ordinating the High-School Student Council which includes a strong commitment to service activities to the local and wider community. Apart from teaching in the classroom, over the years she has been increasingly involved with EuroClio, participating in a variety of projects and training events.

Benny Christensen graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1974, holding a BA in English and an MA in History. He was senior teacher at Fyns HF-kursus (an upper secondary school/gymnasium) in Odense, Denmark until 2009, and is now an independent consultant on history education. Benny Christensen served as a board member of the Danish History Teachers’ Association from 1997 to 2003 and was chairman of the International Committee from 1999 to 2003. He was project manager and expert in the project “Towards a New History”, that took place in Serbia and Montenegro from 2001 to 2003, funded by The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. He has participated as an expert in a number of international activities, funded by for instance the Council of Europe and the Open Society Foundation. Benny Christensen has supported EuroClio actively since its first years of existence, and he is a firm believer in the important role EUROLIO plays in promoting quality history education and intercultural dialogue. He has taken part in a number of annual conferences, also moderating workshops, and has acted as an EuroClio expert on many occasions. The most prominent ones have been the EuroClio project “History in Action-Planning for the Future. Regional Approaches for the Learning and Teaching of History in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia” (2005-2008), and the Historiana theme “People on the Move” (2009-2011). Benny Christensen is a member of the Historiana Learning Group, and currently works for the Council of Europe as an independent expert in the intergovernmental project “Educating for Diversity and Democracy: Teaching History in Contemporary Europe.”

Helen Snelson is Chair of the UK Historical Association’s Secondary Committee, a Chartered History Teacher and is the Curriculum Area Leader for history teacher training at the University of York. Helen has over 20 years’ teaching experience and, as Head of History, her department was awarded the Historical Association's Quality Mark at Gold Level. Her particular interest is in helping history teachers to stay abreast of recent historical scholarship, access diverse source material and use this to make sure that their teaching of History reflects the multiperspectivity of modern society. Within EuroClio, Helen is also involved in the current ‘Sharing Histories’ project and has been involved in several previous projects, including ‘Learning to Disagree’ and ‘Decisions and Dilemmas’.

Paul Jongsma (Webtic, full-stack developer, system administrator and nerd) is one of the founders of the Historiana site and responsible for the technical architecture and hosting of the project. With a background in computer networking and founding partner of a public internet provider back in the 1990’s Paul always had a sweet spot for creating solutions using modern technologies in an interesting way. Writing code since the Acorn Atom and Inspired by Ted Nelsons’ Literary Machines we are building tools to interconnect knowledge in a shareable way.

Joes Koppers is an Interaction designer, creative technologist and Javascript developer. From his studio USE.media he collaborates with other designers, artists and developers to create surprising, fluent, user friendly interfaces and experiences. He has more than 20 years experience in designing & developing these. In 2013 Joes prototyped an early apps portal for Historiana, the precursor of today’s e-Activity builder. Since 2019 he’s part of the core team as front-end developer and UI/UX designer.

Nique Sanders (Webtic, a full-stack designer, researcher and design thinker) is part of the team of founders and lead designer of the website for Historiana. She is responsible for the concept development of the website, the design of the interface and user research. In cooperation with clients and other developers, she develops, with more than 25 years of experience, easy-to-use, accessible products and services. Nique studied Media and Information Management at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science and graphic design at the ArtEZ University of the Arts. In order to incorporate the human side of technology she is currently studying psychology at the Open University Amsterdam