Professor Rosi Braidotti, chair in women's studies at Utrecht University and director of research since 1988; since 1995 scientific director of the Graduate Programme, in charge of training and supervision. She is also the scientific director of the NOISE summer school in multicultural women's studies in Europe and ATHENA, the Thematic Network in women's studies, both officially recognized and funded by the Socrates programme of the European Commission. Braidotti was a Jean Monnet Research Fellowship in the European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre, Florence, Italy (2001); Jean Monnet Chair Professor at the same Institute ( 2002-2003); recurrent Visiting Professor in the gender Institute of the London School of economics ( 1998-2002); Member of School of Social Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA (1994-95); Fullbright Scholar (1994-95); visiting Professorship at the University of Buenos Aires, October, 1998; Professorship at the department of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, Australia, 1996. Scientific coordinator of the Thematic Network ATHENA (1996-2004). Braidotti's expertise is in the field of social and political philosophy, history of ideas, feminist epistemology , post structuralism and ethics. Her most recent publications are:

• Rosi Braidotti: 'Metamorphoses', Polity Press, 2002 (translated into Italian by Feltrinelli, 2003)
• Gabrielle Griffin and Rosi Braidotti, 'Thinking Differently, A Reader in European Women's Studies', London, Zed Books, 2002
• Nuovi Soggetti Nomadi. Roma: Luca Sossella Editore, 2002, 165 p.

Professor Gloria Wekker (full professor and director of the Centre for Gender, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism) is an anthropologist and a specialist in black cultural studies, gender and ethnicity in the Netherlands and comparative international anti-racist studies as well as black women's history. Has extensive international experience in the USA and the UK, as well as in the NOISE summer school; co-ordinator of the 'Black ATHENA' working group in the ATHENA Thematic Network. Fellow at Oral History project of Columbia University, N.Y.C.; Fulbright Scholarship (1987-88). Amongst her recent publications are:

• Caleidoscopische Visies. De zwarte, migranten- en vluchtelingen vrouwenbeweging in Nederland. Edited by Gloria Wekker, Maayke Botman and Nancy Jouwe (KIT, Amsterdam, 2001).
• "I am a gold coin"; Afro-Surinamese women's sexual Subjectivity in a globalizing World. Columbia Univ. Press, 2004 (forthcoming).

Dr. Berteke Waaldijk (associate professor in women's history) is a specialist in social history and women's history, with special emphasis on Dutch-American history, Dutch colonial history and postcolonial cultural studies. Has extensive experience in European teaching in the NOISE summer school and has cooperated with the Open Society Foundation in Eastern Europe. Has coordinated one of the working groups of the ATHENA Thematic Network ( 1999-2000); has participated in a researchproject the Fifth Framework Programme of the EC called Employment and Women's Studies: The impact of Women's Studies Training on Women's Employment in Europe (EWSI) (HPSE-CT2001-00082). Berteke Waaldijk was

• a Fulbright Junior Research Scholarship US 1990;
• Visiting Professor University California Santa Barbara, Summer 2002;
• Academic director (with prof Sabine Hering, Siegen University) of project 'History of Social Work in Eastern Europe, 1900-1960' (2003-2005, supervision of nine researchers, Volkswagen Foundation);
• Participant in Socrates Thematic Network on History, CliohNet; initiator and coordinator (together with prof. Sabine Hering of Siegen University in Germany) of the Network for Historical Studies of Gender and Social Work.

Dr. Rosemarie Buikema (associate professor in gender & literary theory) expert on literary theory and cultural studies, semiotics, postcolonial studies with special emphasis on gender and ethnicity in South Africa. Has extensive international experience with NOISE and in the UNITWIN official exchanges with Southern Africa and Utrecht University. Within this programme she is the academic coordinator for the Gender Programme. Buikema participates in the Research project on 'Masculinity and Risk Taking Behaviour', funded by the SANPAD programme in the Netherlands and jointly coordinated with the University of Western Cape in South Africa. Co-ordinator of the ethics and politics of research cluster in the PH.D..-Research Capacity Building Programme (for staff en Ph.D...-students of historically disadvantaged universities in Southern Africa) .

Dr. Kathy Davis (associate professor in gender and the social sciences) is a specialist in the area of feminist social sciences , social psychology and cultural studies, with strong emphasis on women's health and studies of the female body in society.

• Visiting Professor Wellesley College (USA);
• Visiting Professor, University of Tampere (Finland);
• Editor European Journal of Women's Studies;
• Participant EU- Project 'Fiction and Science'.

Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi ( post-doctoral fellow in gender and post-colonial studies, funded by the Dutch National Science Foundation) as a follow-up to her dissertation on Italian-African and Anglo-Indian women writers, she is currently engaged in a cutting-edge research project on comparative postcolonial studies from a multi-lingual European perspective. Has extensive international teaching experience in NOISE and as academic co-ordinator in the Graduate Programme. She was:

• a Visiting Scholar, Permanent Research Seminar Women's Studies/Ph.D., Programme Comparative Literature, Bologna University, Italy, 2000;
• main organizer International Conference "Writing Europe 2001: Migrant Cartographies. Cultural Travellers and New Literatures", University of Amsterdam/University of Leiden, 22-23-24 March 2001.