Lisa Hellman is a historian working at the intersection between social, cultural, maritime and global history in East and Central Asia, with a special focus on gender. Her research has been awarded a prize from the International Congress for Asian Studies in 2017, the Frank Broeze Prize in maritime history in 2020, and the Mattingly Award for research on diplomacy in 2021 (together with Birgit Tremml-Werner). In 2022, she was appointed to ’Academianet’ as an ‘outstanding female scholar’, nominated by the Swedish Research Council. In 2023 she was appointed member of Academia Europaea.

Having earned a PhD at Stockholm University, she moved on to postdoctoral positions at Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Tokyo. From 2019 to 2021, she was a co-PI of a British Academy-funded research project called ‘Living on the Edge: Experiences and Responses to Europe’s Changing Borderlands’ (together with Edmond Smith). Since 2020, she leads the research group Coerced Circulation of Knowledge at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies.

Since 2021, Hellman has been directing NordGlob External link, opens in new window., a network for global history in the Nordic countries. Her publications include the monograph This House Is Not a Home: European Everyday Life in Canton and Macao 1730–1830 (Brill: 2018) and articles in publications like Journal of Global History, Journal of the History of Ideas, Diplomatica, and International Journal of Maritime History.

As a Pro Futura Scientia Fellow, Hellman will explore the process of early modern globalisation, using as a case study of Swedish prisoners of war in the Central Asian borderlands from 1700 to 1730. Combining North and West European, Russian and Chinese sources, she will trace the roles of coerced men and women in intercultural communication, diplomacy, circulation of knowledge and trade.

This information is accurate as of the academic year 2024-25.