Holding a PhD in Tropical Sciences (2004) since 2015, Lobato is Full Researcher at the Centre of History (CH), School of Arts and Humanities-University of Lisbon (FLUL), where he teaches Southeast Asian studies (undergraduate course) and European and Portuguese Empires (post-graduate courses). He was formerly (2009-2012) Vice-Director of the Centre of History  at the Institute for Tropical Research, Lisbon (IICT), and Professor of the Institute for Asian Studies (IEO) at the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP, 2007-2011). He is the author of two books on the Portuguese empire in Southeast Asia and has published five other books and peer-reviewed dossiers on East-Timor colonial history. He has published more than one hundred papers and book chapters on the Portuguese empire in East Africa and in South and Southeast Asia. 

Raphael P. M. Lotilla is a former Professor of Law at the University of the Philippines, former Undersecretary at the National Economic and Development Authority, and former Secretary of Energy in the Philippines.

Rui Manuel Loureiro is a Portuguese historian, currently a researcher at CHAM, Centro de Humanidades, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and a professor at the Instituto Superior Manuel Teixeira Gomes, in Portimão, Portugal. He holds a PhD form the Universidade de Lisboa (1995). He has published widely on the European cultural contacts with Asia in the early modern period and has a particular interest in travel writings. His most recent publications include a new critical edition of the «Suma Oriental» by Tomé Pires (Lisbon, 2018), a study about the books and maps Magellan might have used to prepare his expedition («Em demanda da biblioteca de Fernão de Magalhães», Lisbon, 2019) and a biographic dossier about Magellan's voyage («Anais de História de Além-Mar, 2020).

Researcher of CHAM—Centre for the Humanities (Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa), the Center of Religious History Studies (Universidade Católica Portuguesa), and Chair of Sephardic Studies Alberto Benveniste (Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa), Miguel Lourenço is also the executive editor of the journal Orientis Aura published by the Faculty of Religious Studies of University of Saint Joseph (Macau). He is also part of the editorial board for the journal Cadernos de Estudos Sefarditas and the coordinator of Série Goana of Colecção Usque, both published by the Chair of Sephardic Studies Alberto Benveniste. He specializes in the history of Macau and the Philippines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially on the institutional representation of the Inquisition in these territories and on the cartography of Southeast Asia. He is the author of A Articulação da Periferia. Macau e a Inquisição de Goa (c. 1582–c. 1650) (Lisbon and Macao, 2016) and co-editor with Jaqueline Vassallo and Susana Bastos Mateus of Inquisiciones: Dimensiones Comparadas (siglos XVI–XIX) (Córdoba, 2017).

Pedro Luengo is presently associate professor of the History of Art Department in the Universidad de Sevilla. He received his Ph.D. in History of Art from this institution with his work “Intramuros: arquitectura en Manila, 1739–1788." He has been a visiting academic at different international institutions such as San Agustin Museum (Manila), Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (Mexico), European University Institute (Florence), King's College London, Oxford University, and Sapienza Univeristà di Roma. He has taken part in several international research projects, being the principal investigator of one on Xiyanglou buildings in the Yuanming Yuan Garden in Beijing and one on the architecture of power during the eighteenth century. He has published several papers in journals both national and international. More remarkable is the edition of his books titled Intramuros: Arquitectura en Manila, 1739–1762 (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 2012); Manila, plaza fuerte. Ingenieros militares entre Europa, América y Asia (Madrid, CSIC-Ministerio de Defensa, 2013), The Convents of Manila: Globalized Architecture during the Iberian Union (Quezon City, Ateneo University Press, 2017), and Manila 1645 (New York, Routledge, 2020).

Paulina Machuca is a research professor at El Colegio de Michoacán (Mexico) and a visiting professor at the University of Toulouse, France (2021–2022). In recent years she has specialized in the history of biocultural exchanges between Mexico and the Philippines from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Among her most recent publications are the book coordinated with Thomas Calvo, titled México y Filipinas: culturas y memorias sobre el Pacífico (published by El Colegio de Michoacán and the Ateneo de Manila University, 2016) and the book titled Historia mínima de Filipinas (published by El Colegio de México, 2019). In 2019, she received the Francisco Javier Clavijero Award for the best history book in Mexico, titled El vino de cocos en la Nueva España. Historia de una transculturación en el siglo XVII, in which she analyzes the introduction of the coconut palm tree and the production of lambanog by Filipinos on the Mexican Pacific coast. She has been a visiting professor at various academic institutions in Spain, France, and the Philippines.

Iva Magsalin is a student and researcher based in Manila. She recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Filipino Literature from the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU). Her research interests are religious performance studies, gender studies, children’s literature, and educational research, with a publication in the academic journal Teaching for Higher Education. This year, she intends to pursue a Master’s Degree in Filipino Literature at ADMU, alongside advocating for quality education for underprivileged sectors in the Philippines.

Jose Elias (Anselm, OSB) Manalastas is a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat in Manila. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. His areas of interest are cultural and historical developments in Philippine cuisine and Philippine-Mexican exchange in the age of the Manila Galleons. He is currently teaching at the College of Law at San Beda University. 

Jorge Semedo de Matos is a Navy officer with the grade of commander, professor at the Portuguese Naval Academy, and Associated Professor in the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, Department of History. He holds a Bachelor’s in history (1999), master’s degree in history of Portuguese Discoveries (2009), and Ph.D. in History of Expansion from the University of Lisbon. He is a researcher of the Centre for History of the University of Lisbon and of the Portuguese Naval Centre, a member emeritus of the Naval Academy, and associated member of the Portuguese Academy of History. He authored the book Roteiros e rotas portuguesas do Oriente, séculos XVI e XVII (Portuguese rutters and routes of the Far East, XVIth and XVIIth centuries), for which he received the prize “Almirante Sarmento Rodrigues-2017.” He has also produced more than one hundred articles and book chapters, mostly on Modern History, History of Nautical Science, and Naval History.

Stuart M. McManus is an historian and classicist working on pre-modern culture from a global and multi-ethnic perspective. He received his PhD in history (secondary field in classical philology) from Harvard, and is currently Assistant Professor of Pre-Modern World History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, he taught Mexican and ancient Mediterranean history at the University of Chicago, where he was the inaugural postdoctoral fellow at the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge.  During the 2019-2020 academic year, he was a visiting scholar at Princeton’s Davis Centre for Historical Studies. 

Jovi Miroy teaches Philosophy of Religion and Medieval Philosophy at the Ateneo de Manila University. He acquired his Ph.D. from the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium.) His recent publications are: “Discontinuity and Continuity of Devotion: The Virgin of Guadalupe from Mexico to Makati,” Budhi Vol. 22 Issue 2 (2018); “Neo-Gothic Imaginary of Manila: San Sebastian Church and Revising the City for the Global Age,” Espasyo Journal of Philippine Architecture and Allied Arts, Vol. 9 (2017–2018; printed in 2019);  and “Ang Awit Bilang Remix: Katutubo, Wika, at Pilosopiya,” UNITAS, Vol. 93, No. 2 (November 2020), pp. 1–14. In 2019, he directed and produced “Ang Apologia ni Sokrates” at the Arête, ADMU. In 2021, he wrote a play on M. H. del Pilar ("Plaridel") with OICA UP Diliman. He is anchor at Radyo Katipunan.

A French citizen born in 1955, Sylvie Morishita has lived in the United States and Japan. She received a doctorate in Catholic theology from the University of Strasbourg in 2016. He has published L'art des missions catholiques au Japon-XVIe-XVIIe siècle (The art of catholic Missions in Japan-16th-17th century) in 2020. She writes and lectures on the history of Catholic missions in Japan.