Keynote Speakers
Paschalis Kitromilides
Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Ph.D. Harvard University, has served Greek higher education at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens from 1980 to 2016. Originally a lecturer on the history of political thought in the Law School, he became Associate Professor (1983) and Professor (1987) of Political Science in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the Faculty of Law, Economics and Political Science.
He has been director of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies since 1980 and was Director of the Institute of Neohellenic Research / National Hellenic Research Foundation (2000-2011).
He was a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Brandeis Universities, USA, Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge and at the University of Oxford, Directeur d’Études invité, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow, European University Institute, Florence and Visiting Professor, Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Villa I Tatti, Florence. He is a life member of the academic council of the Greek Parliament since 2004 and an external member of the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts since 2020.
He is the author or editor of over fifty books and over two hundred and eighty articles and book reviews in academic journals and collective volumes in Greek and English. Besides English and Greek, his books have appeared in French, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Turkish. He has been honored with the Excellence in University Teaching award in memory of Xanthopoulos-Pnevmatikos (2016), the Award of Excellence in Historical and Social Sciences of the Academy of Athens (2018), the first Lifetime Achievement Award, European Society for the History of Political Thought (2018). He has received the decorations Chevalier des Palmes Académiques, French Republic (2003) and Commander of the Order of Honor, Hellenic Republic (2015).
He is a full member of the Academy of Athens since 2020.
Iveta Ķestere
Iveta Ķestere is a Professor at the Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology and Lead Researcher at the Scientific Institute of Pedagogy at the University of Latvia. She holds a master’s degree in history and a doctorate in educational sciences from the University of Latvia.
Her scholarship examines the history of education under twentieth-century European totalitarian regimes, with particular attention to the development of education sciences and the teaching profession. Drawing extensively on materialities and visual sources, she has researched the history of childhood, classroom culture, and the image of the teacher. Dr. Ķestere has published numerous articles internationally and authored or co-edited eight books.
Among her most recent works is the collected volume Hour Zero–Educational Sciences in the 1950s: Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (Peter Lang, 2026), co-edited with Tomáš Kasper and Attila Nóbik. Dr. Ķestere has delivered invited lectures at universities in Belgium, Germany and Lithuania.
Her international engagement includes board membership with the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (2011–2014) and the European Educational Research Association, Network 17 (2015–2022), and continues through her current editorial positions with History of Education, Acta Paedagogica Vilnensia, and the international advisory board of Paedagogica Historica.
