The Editors of British Naval History would like to thank, and introduce the following Authors, the Entrants to the 2014 Alan Villiers Memorial Lecture Postgraduate Essay Contest
Claudia Zanardi
King’s College London
Claudia Zanardi is a PhD student in the Department of War Studies at Kings College, London. She holds a degree with first class honours in Economics from the University of Bologna and another in International Relations at the same University. She holds an MPhil in International Relations (IRs) from Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne (France) and Paris 2-Assas (France) as well as a Diploma in EU Economics and Politics (Paris) and another in IRs at Bologna University. She studied diplomacy and served shortly at the Italian Embassy in Lisbon.
In 2011 she joined the War Studies Department where was a teaching assistant in Conduct of War and Experience of War. She currently researches the modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and how it is perceived by major EU Member States. With a passion for military history especially in East Asia she also aims to understand how the Chinese perception of the seas and its maritime frontiers has changed over the centuries. Previously, she worked for the European Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) and the Assembly of the West European Union (WEU). She speaks fluently Italian, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and is currently learning Mandarin.
Hugues Canuel
Royal Military College of Canada
Commander Hugues Canuel is an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy currently employed as Directing Staff on the Joint Command and Staff Programme at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, Ontario. He has deployed on extensive tours at sea – leading to command of the Atlantic Fleet’s largest vessel, Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Preserver – as well as serving at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario in capacities such as Director of Strategic Communications and Executive Assistant to the Chief of the Maritime Staff. Commander Canuel most recently completed a tour of duty on the staff of the Deputy Commander Special Operations Forces, NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan. He has since resumed his doctoral studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, seeking to complete his dissertation titled From the Richelieu to Le Redoutable: Forging an Independent French Naval Policy within a Maritime Alliance, 1943-1963. Commander Canuel has written extensively on maritime strategy, cold war history, counterinsurgency practices and civil-military relations in publications such as Defence Studies, Canadian Naval Review, Journal of Intelligence History, The Journal of Transatlantic Studies and Canadian Military Journal.
Chris Menking
University of North Texas
Chris Menking was born and raised in South Texas. He completed his undergraduate degree in history with minors in English and geography at Texas A&M University, College Station. He received his master’s degree from the University of North Texas in history. Currently, he is working on his PhD at the University of North Texas. The Mexican-American War and Mexican-American history in the 19th and 20th centuries are his main fields of study. He also study Russian revolutionary history as a minor field. He is a TA and works in the Learning Center at the University of North Texas. His goal is to eventually become a professor at a university.
Jerome Devitt
Trinity College, Dublin
Jerome is a second year PhD student investigating the British and Irish Executive’s reaction to Transatlantic Fenianism in the late 1860s, under the supervision of Dr David Dickson and Dr Ciaran O’Neill. He views the defensive system in the light of recent developments in counter-insurgency practice and theory. His interdisciplinary research project will engage with aspects of military, naval, legal, diaspora, administrative, and transnational history. Of particular interest to his research project is the implementation of deterrent policies and their media reception. Of these policies, the use of the Royal Navy as an aid to the “civil power” is a key, and under-explored aspect of Irish and mid-Victorian historiography.
A Dublin native, and former junior national sailing champion, he was recently awarded an Irish Research Council – “Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship” that commenced in Autumn 2013. He also spent a portion of summer 2013 as a “Dobbin Scholar” of the Irish Canadian University Foundation, studying with Dr David A Wilson at the University of Toronto. He is a member of the “Transnational Ireland” research group, and the convener of the Trinity Postgraduate Student Seminar Series.
Further information on his project can be found at: https://tcd.academia.edu/JeromeDevitt
