Elena Romero-Passerin is a French PhD candidate in History in the University of St Andrews. She previously got her MA in Sorbonne University in Paris. Her thesis is about publicly funded botanic gardens in the second half of the eighteenth century. It focuses on the case studies of Edinburgh, Florence, and Pisa. The purpose of the research is to understand the status of botanic gardens as institutions of science and how they shaped the scientific landscape of their time. In the course of her research, Elena has worked a lot on experiments of acclimatization of exotic plats in Europe, which is where the inspiration for her contribution to Mer-plant-ilism came from.
Christin Simons is a PhD Candidate in Early Modern/Maritime History at the University of St Andrews. Her research centers around the analysis of the development of strategies enabling smaller companies to subsist on the trade within China and Europe by means on the Scandinavian Asiatic Companies (SAC), more precisely the Swedish- and the Danish East India Company in the period of the 1730´s to the 1760´s. By investigating the perception and interaction of the relatively small SAC with competing companies like the European giants, the British East India Company (EIC) and the Dutch East India Company (VOC), she seeks to establish the trading strategies, particularly those concerning ´neutrality´ which resulted in the successful East India trade of the Scandinavian companies in the 18th century. She is also the Co-Organiser of the annual Postgraduate Port and Maritime Studies Network Conference in the UK.
Mer-plant-ilism 