Joëlla van Donkersgoed leads the Historesch Gesinn project which aims to build a social hub where the public can engage with historical research conducted at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) and cultural institutions in Luxembourg. The start-up phase is in collaboration with the Lëtzebuerg City Museum and the archives in Esch-sur-Alzette. The project is funded by the FNR PSP-Flagship. Prior to this project, she coordinated HistorEsch: Public History Activities in the city of Esch-sur-Alzette as part of Thomas Cauvin’s FNR ATTRACT-project Public History as the New Citizen Science of the Past (PHACS).
She holds a PhD. degree in Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies from the Art History department at Rutgers, the State University in New Jersey, USA (2020), as well as a Bachelors and Master’s degree with a specialization in public archaeology and archaeological heritage management from Leiden University, the Netherlands (2012/2014). Her PhD. research focused on local community empowerment on the Banda Islands in Indonesia through an inclusive cultural-landscape approach of the cultural and natural heritage environment.
In her research- and work activities, it is her aim to centralize the perspective of the local community and provide local (diverse) voices a platform to speak, participate, and be empowered.