Project Director & Principal Investigator

L. Sasha Gora is a cultural historian and writer with a focus on food studies, the environmental humanities, and contemporary art. Although her last name means mountain, she was born in Tkaronto, where there are no peaks but there is a lake—a great one. Before joining the University of Augsburg, she did her doctoral studies at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen. She considers green peppers a missed opportunity, prefers white grapefruit to pink, and has almost never met a potato chip she hasn’t liked.

PhD Researcher

Philine Schiller is a food, history, and literary studies researcher interested in recipes, narratives, and eco-culinary transformations. Although she was born far away from the ocean, she has conceptualized a PhD project about oysters and saltwater foodways. Before joining the University of Augsburg, she completed a teaching degree in English and Spanish Philology at the University of Heidelberg, where she also started doctoral research about food memoirs. Naturally, she loves to eat and cook an excessive amount. The last bite of her every meal needs to be perfect, so that it may linger. Potato chips only tempt her when they’re bear-shaped.

PhD Researcher

Penelope Volinia is a culinary environmental humanities researcher. After years of working in ethnobotany, she is beginning to dive into the Blue Humanities. She comes from a city that is as flat as it gets, with some parts below sea level, and sometimes, thanks to the humidity, it feels like you are swimming while cycling. Her background stretches from a BA in Product Design and Communication from IUAV University in Venice to a MA in Food Innovation and Management from the University of Gastronomic Science in Pollenzo. She is part of the questionable Italian demographic that doesn’t regularly drink coffee, but she will never decline any form of tiramisu.

Research Assistant

Before joining the master’s program in Environmental Ethics at the University of Augsburg, Annika Feldmeier earned a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from Malmö University, where she focused on Indigenous environmental movements and decolonialization. Eventually, she dedicated herself to learning about ancient Indigenous food systems and the ethics that guide them. Disenchanted with Bavarian food, she took a “look behind her plate” and found her happy ending in the universe of spices.