Principal Investigator
Samuel Alberti
Sam is Director of Collections at National Museums Scotland, and an Honorary Professor in Heritage Studies at the University of Stirling. For twenty years he has worked at the intersection of museums and universities. He has published two monographs and three edited collections. His recent practice has focussed on the role of museums in the climate emergency and Cold War museology.
Co-Investigator
Holger Nehring
Holger is Professor of Contemporary European History at the University of Stirling and Co-Investigator (with Dr Sam Alberti) of the research project Materialising the Cold War (Project Reference: AH/V001078/1). He has written widely on the transnational history of social movements, especially peace movements, during the Cold War and has now begun work on a project on the environmental history of Cold War military infrastructure in central northern Europe. He is the Co-Director of the Centre for Policy, Conflict and Co-Operation Research and a member of the Centre for Environment, Heritage and Policy, both at the University of Stirling. He has held visiting positions at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, EHESS (Paris), the Ohio State University, University of Michigan and Stanford University.
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Jessica Douthwaite
Jessica’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD based at IWM, London and University of Strathclyde was titled Voices of the Cold War in Britain, 1945-1962 and awarded in 2018. She is currently writing a monograph which explores how the national and international landscapes of post-war Britain contextualised and influenced civilian experiences of Cold War security. She specialises in oral history methodology, gender studies and Cold War international relations.
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Sarah Harper
Dr Sarah Harper is Research Fellow at National Museums Scotland working on the Materialising the Cold War project. She completed an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD in 2022. She worked with the University of Stirling and National Museums Scotland on her project ‘Bombers, Bunkers and Badges: The Cold War Materialised in National Museums Scotland.’ This research utilised the collections of National Museums Scotland to examine how ‘Cold War’ meanings have become attached to artefacts in the museum and how influential people and place are in ascribing these meanings. Prior to her PhD, Sarah was Collections and Research Manager at The Devil’s Porridge Museum and has a master’s degree in Preventive Conservation.