People

Visiting researchers

• Celina Greppler

  Celina S. Lubahn Greppler is Schmittmann-Wahlen Scholar and researcher at the Institute for International Peace and Security Law at the University of Cologne. Her PhD project focusses on the violent appropriations of “ethnographica” during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the corresponding restitution claims thereafter (supervision: Prof. Claus Kreß). As a scholar of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, she graduated in Law at the University of Cologne (Staatsexamen) and received her BA in Philosophy from Saarland University. During her studies, she worked as a student assistant at the Chair of Philosophy of Law (Prof. Maximilian Herberger) and undertook studies at the University of Luxembourg. Her main areas of interest include international humanitarian law, international cultural heritage law, political philosophy, and the history of international law.

  From 2021-2024 Lubahn Greppler served as an advisor to the German development financial institution (KfW DEG) on regulatory, legal and development policy issues. Between 2014 and 2015, she was part of the German delegation to the United Nations (General Assembly’s Third Comittee and Comission for Social Development and Commission for Social Development). As the German youth delegate, she advised the diplomatic delegation in social, humanitarian, and cultural issues. From 2010-2011 she carried out her civil service with the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) at the Associação Juvenil para o Desenvolvimento Comunitário in Inhambane, Mozambique.

• Paul P. Stewens

  Paul P. Stewens is a guest researcher at the Faculty of Law's Department of Criminal Law and Criminology (until 4th of July 2022) , working with MACCH affiliated researcher Donna Yates among others. His work focuses on the illicit trade in fossils and its regulation under public international law to counteract harmful extractive practices in palaeontology (such as parachute science) and to address the widespread phenomenon of colonial fossil looting. He is an undergraduate student of international relations at Technische Universität Dresden and an incoming student of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. If you are interested in his research or would like to collaborate with Paul, please reach out to paul.stewens@maastrichtuniversity.nl.

• Hélia Marçal

  As part of my Ph.D. on the conservation of performance art at NOVA University of Lisbon, I spent three months (12 September – 12 December) as a Visiting Researcher at MACCH, working among others with Dr. Vivian van Saaze. I had high expectations of my stay at Maastricht University and they were all greatly exceeded.

  Not only did I acquire skills that will help me complete my work, the research visit also allowed me to discuss some issues with several scholars that opened my horizons and helped me to overcome some writing obstacles. Besides working on my Ph.D. research, I attended several formal and informal meetings and also engaged in various MACCH activities such as the Digital Heritage Workshop, which I helped organise. On 1 October, I joined Van Saaze in a public event on performance art at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and became one of the documentalists of a live work by the art collective JODI. In addition, I was able to attend several lectures at Maastricht University as well as the Symposium The Many Faces of UNESCO (1945-2015). Among all the benefits I got from my stay, I have to mention the opportunity of working with researchers who have a profound knowledge of performance art and ethnographic research. I hope this contact between NOVA University of Lisbon and MACCH resonates in time and space, becoming a collaboration full of different, and yet similarly positive, occurrences for both institutes.

  On a more personal note I am hoping this was only the first contact between MACCH and myself, and that this first encounter also creates future opportunities.