Julian Chehirian is a Visiting Research Associate. He is a researcher on the histories of psychotherapy and psychiatry in the People's Republic of Bulgaria. During 2014­-15 he was a Fulbright scholar at the New Bulgarian University. During this fellowship he applied oral history, archival and ethnographic methods to assemble the beginnings of a social-historical perspective on the transformation of mental healthcare during Bulgaria's communist period—especially of its human consequences. He is interested in how trauma and psychological crisis were made sense of in a cultural environment dominated by materialist social and political ideologies. In this sense his work is at the intersection of social history and medical anthropology. Perspectives emerging from his research have been presented at ARCS, CAS, AUBG and in a public exhibition at the Red House in Sofia titled "Excavating the Psyche: A Social History of Psychiatry in the People's Republic of Bulgaria". As a Visiting Research Associate Julian expands on his archival and ethnographic work on the mostly unstudied history of psychiatry in Bulgaria, examining the legacy of the Soviet psychiatric model on Bulgarian cultural and individual experience today.

Mina Megalla is a Visiting Research Associate. He is an Egyptian archaeologist who has been working in various excavations as well as conducting outreach work and archaeological research in different countries and regions such as: Egypt, Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania, Moldova, Georgia, and Qatar. He held many positions such as the Outreach Officer and Researcher of the QIAH Project carried out by the University in Copenhagen (2014-2015), Researcher and Archaeological events Coordinator at the Ministry of State for Antiquities in Egypt (2006-2010). He was awarded in 2014 MA in Archaeological Research, Classical Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, New Bulgarian University, Sofia. He gave several public talks in Egypt, Bulgaria, The United States and Qatar. He was also a Volunteer Researcher at the Department of Science and Education of The Field Museum in Chicago 2013-2015.

Orlin Yordanov is a Visiting Research Associate. He is a Teacher in Philosophy and Civil Education at the National College of Ancient Languages and Cultures in Sofia, Bulgaria. During the course of his professional experience Orlin Yordanov has developed experience in the design, elaboration and application different monitoring and evaluation initiatives on Roma-related projects and programs on local and national level in Bulgaria. He has collaborated with different clients – public authorities and officials, NGOs and their staff and managed and coordinated different educational programmes. Being professional teacher himself, he is familiar with the challenges faced by the system of Education in Bulgaria, but specifically those that oppose the Roma community in the country. His active citizenship has been expressed by its membership at the Students’ Parliament Initiative and the National Agency for Information and Legal Services.As researcher on Roma issues, he has been involved with different organizations in Bulgaria, including official authorities and NGOs.