People

Meet The Team

The project team comprises two researchers based at Northumbria University, Gordon Barrett (as Senior Research Fellow) and Daniel Laqua (as Project Lead), Co-Investigators at the Danish Arctic Institute (Lif Lund Jacobsen), Charles University Prague (Doubravka Olšáková) and UC Chile (Bárbara Kirsi Silva) as well as a Research Fellow at the University of Chicago (Simón Ballesteros).

**Gordon Barrett (Senior Research Fellow)**

Gordon is the Senior Research Fellow for this project. Based at Northumbria University, UK, he is working across multiple HESG research strands, with particular contributions to the case studies dealing with the 1957–8 International Geophysical Year and Arctic governance. His research places particular emphasis on actors, activities, and agency related to the Asia-Pacific, especially East Asia.

**Daniel Laqua (Project Lead)**

Daniel is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Northumbria University, UK. He is coordinating the overall work on the HESG project as well as contributing specifically to the case study dealing with UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere programme. More broadly, his research is concerned with the histories of transnational movements and international organisations.

Lif Lund Jacobsen (Co-Investigator)

Lif is Head of Archives at the Danish Arctic Institute in Copenhagen. For the HESG project, she will be examining environmental governance in the Arctic. Her research focuses on the scientific exploration of Greenland, the history of earth science, and science diplomacy in the Arctic across multiple colonial contexts.

Doubravka Olšáková (Co-Investigator)

Doubravka is a senior researcher at the Institute of Political Studies, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. As part of HESG, she focuses on the history of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, particularly its role in shaping global environmental governance, scientific expertise, and East-West as well as North-South knowledge exchanges during the Cold War.

Bárbara Kirsi Silva (Co-Investigator)

Barbara Kirsi Silva is Director of Research and Development College UC and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of History, Geography and Political Science, UC Chile. As part of HESG, she focuses on the 1957–58 International Geophysical Year, particularly the impacts and influence of Latin America within its global programme and its legacies.

Simón Ballesteros (Research Associate)

Simón is a postdoctoral researcher based at the Chicago Center on Democracy at the University of Chicago. His work in the HESG project involves drafting discussion papers on governance and institutional design, helping to establish the theoretical framework for the project’s case studies. He is also the lead organiser for a project workshop on environmental governance and democracy (Chicago, 2026). More broadly, Simón's research agenda focuses on democracy and political institutions, with a regional emphasis on Latin America.

The project’s advisory board comprises Fiona McConnell (University of Oxford), Amalia Ribi Forclaz (Geneva Graduate Institute), Glenda Sluga (European University Board) and Simone Turchetti (University of Manchester)