Teaching staff

Prof. Beatrice de Graaf
Beatrice de Graaf is Professor of History of International Relations & Global Governance. Her interests include the history of national security in the West (19th-21st centuries) and the development of security thinking, counterterrorism and political violence, securitisation and international relations. She frequently appears in the media as a commenter and as an expert on terrorism. For an example, please view her lecture at DWDD University.
Dr Marloes Beers
Marloes Beers is Assistant Professor and member of the core-team of the MA International Relations in Historical Perspective. Her research focuses on the history of the European integration process. The main themes of research are European energy cooperation, especially in the 1970s, and European identity. Marloes Beers has published widely on these issues, with a particular focus on the complex decision-making process on energy within Europe, the influence of the OECD on this process and the creation of the International Energy Agency
Dr Lorena de Vita
Lorena De Vita is an Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations at Utrecht University and a Co-Coordinator of the MA in International Relations in Historical Perspective. An award-winning lecturer and researcher, her research focuses on the international history of the Cold War, on the international politics of the Arab/Israeli conflict, and on post-1945 European history. Her findings were published both in academic outlets, e.g Cold War History, and popular media, such as The Washington Post.
Dr Frank Gerits
Frank Gerits is a lecturer in the history of international relations at Utrecht University, a fellow at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein and an external fellow at the University of Shanghai. His research focuses on African international history and the diplomatic history of ‘The rest’. He has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Cold War History, the International History Review, Diplomatic History and the Journal of African History and has been a visiting fellow at KULeuven, the Institut Française du Nigeria and the University of Shanghai. He currently heads the Uglobe Decolonisation Group.
Dr Peter Malcontent
Peter Malcontent is an Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations. He is specialized in Dutch foreign policy on human rights, development cooperation, the Arab-Israeli conflict and transitional justice. On the latter, he recently published the first comprehensive handbook analysing all available instruments to deal with historical injustices - ranging from international criminal tribunals to truth commissions - from a comparative perspective (Facing the Past, Intersentia, 2016).
Dr Stefanie Massink
Stefanie Massink is a Lecturer in the History of International Relations at Utrecht University and Internship Coordinator of the MA in International Relations in Historical Perspective. Her research mainly focusses on the Cold War era, specializing in Dutch foreign policy, Spanish history in an international perspective and Dutch-Spanish diplomatic relations, from the Spanish Civil War to the Spanish transition from dictatorship to democracy (1936 - 1977).
Prof. Jacco Pekelder
Jacco Pekelder s an Associate Professor in the History of International Relations and Honorary Professor at Saarland University, Saarbrücken (Germany). He is specialised in terrorism and political violence and in the history of contemporary Europe and Germany. In 2016, he started the winning student social-media campaign 'Dare to be Grey'. This campaign received the first prize in a worldwide contest organized by Facebook and the US State Department to challenge students to develop a social-media strategy to counteract extremism and radicalisation. See: http://dtbg.nl/
Dr Paschalis Pechlivanis
Paschalis Pechlivanis is an Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations at the Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University. His research interests lie at the intersection of International History and International Relations, with a specific focus on the Cold War, US Foreign Policy and post-1945 European and Balkan History.