NUTRIPOL

THE TEAM

DR. MARA MARGINEAN (project leader)

Mara Mărginean is a historian specializing in the economic and social history of the industrializing regions of 20th century Romania. Her research interests encompass labor relations and living standards, including institutions, expert communities, and transnational knowledge production and transfers. She is currently a senior researcher at the George Baritiu Institute of History in Cluj Napoca. Previously, she conducted extensive archival research in Romania, Switzerland, Italy, the UK, and Russia. She has held fellowships at the New Europe College in Bucharest, the Open Society Archives in Budapest, the Center for Urban History in Lviv, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Recent publications include: "Economic Dependency, Race, and Industrial Labor Shifts in an East European (Semi)Periphery: The Case of Roma in Late Socialist Romania." In The Political Economy of Extreme Poverty in Eastern Europe: A Comparative Historical Perspective of Romanian Roma, ed. Eniko Vincze, Cornel Ban, Sorin Gog, Jon Horgen Friberg, Routledge (Oct. 2024), p. 39-58; "Vehicles of Knowledge Circulation: The Centre for the Improvement of Management Personnel in Enterprises (CEPECA) and Romania's Cooperation with the United Nations in the Long 1970s." In Worlds of Management: Transregional Perspectives on Management Knowledge, 1950s–1970s, eds. Katharina Kreuder-Sonnen, Lukas Becht, Florian Peters, Vítězslav Sommer. Special issue: Comparativ. A Journal on Global History and Comparative Analysis of Societies/Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und Vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung 33 (2023) 5-6: 602-620. "The Value of a Calorie: Food Policies and the Making of Standards of Living in the Mid-20th Century Romania," New Europe College Stefan Odobleja Program Yearbook (2021-2022): 131-159.

DR. CORINA DOBOS

Corina Doboș, PhD., senior researcher at the National Institute for the study of Totalitarianism of the Romanian Academy and associated lecturer in History at the University of Bucharest. Fellow of New Europe College (Bucharest) and of Imre Kertész Kolleg (Jena). Various research scholarships & stages at EHEES Paris, Freie Univ. Berlin, University of Freiburg and Birbeck College, London. P.I. of the project Crafting demographic knowledge in the 20th century: population and development in an Eastern European periphery.Research interests: biopolitics, history of science, population theories and policies in 20th century, expert knowledge formation.Recent publications: Corina Doboș, „Ana Blandiana, Children’s Crusade (1984, Romania)”, în Zsófia Lóránd, Adela Hîncu, Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc, Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz, eds., Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights/ East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century, CEU Press, 2024, pp.643-650; Corina Doboș, „No country for (poor) women. Reproductive Rights, Conservatism, and Neoliberalism in Post-socialist Romania” in Jill Massino and Markus Wien, eds., Everyday Postsocialism in Eastern Europe: History Doesn't Travel in One Direction, Purdue University Press, 2024, pp.143-161; Corina Doboș, „Whose children? Pronatalist incentives and social categorization in socialist Romania”, in Joachim von Puttkamer, Barbara Klich-Kluczewska, Immo Rebitschek (eds.), Fearing for the Nation. Biopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century, Londra: Routledge, 2022, pp. 73-98; Corina Doboș “Disciplining births: population research and politics in communist Romania”, The History of the Family. Special issue: Sex education and reproductive politics in Cold War Europe, issue-editors E. Varsa and D. Szikra, published online https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2020.1807384

DR. BOGDAN VARSAN

Bogdan Vârșan (b. 1989, Bucharest) is a historian specializing in the social and economic history of 20th-century Romania. He earned his BA (2007–2010) and MA (2010–2012) in History from the University of Bucharest, where he later pursued doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Bogdan Murgescu. His PhD thesis, defended in 2019 and awarded the distinction "very good," examined the working class in Bucharest during the early socialist period: "The Working Class in Bucharest in the Context of Socialist Modernization (1948–1965)." Throughout his academic training, he participated in numerous national and international conferences, presenting research on the political, social, and economic transformations of Romania in the 20th century. During his PhD, he was awarded a research grant by the Romanian Academy through the READ program ("Routes of Excellence in Doctoral Research") and undertook a research fellowship at NOVA University Lisbon in 2015. Between 2018 and 2023, he was involved in teaching in the MA program "The History of Communism in Romania" at the University of Bucharest. He is also an active member of the Romanian Association for Social History, contributing to the organization of scholarly events aimed at fostering public engagement with social history research. Since 2017, Bogdan Vârșan has worked at the Romanian Television Society (TVR) in the Media Archive and Documentation Department. As of 2025, he holds the position of Scientific Researcher in the research project "Medical Knowledge, Nutrition and Social Change: An Analysis of the Politics of Life in Late Socialist Romania (1960–1989)."

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