Martina Kado is the director of publications at the Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) in Baltimore. She oversees all book publications under the MCHC imprint and serves as editor of the Maryland Historical Magazine, in publication since 1906. She works with other departments on in-house editing projects, from museum interpretation to public programming.

Prior to joining MCHC in 2019, Martina’s twenty-year career included university teaching in the fields of literary and cultural studies, international nonprofit project management, and educational advising, as well as published writing, editing, and translation in language and literature, education, and social research.

Martina was a Fulbright Fellow at the Pennsylvania State University in 2010–2011, where she researched the sea literature of Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad as part of her doctoral dissertation. Martina holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and an M.Sc. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Much like her interest in sea narratives, her personal life has been a “traveling genre,” thriving between her native Croatia and the United States. In her free time, Martina enjoys flamenco dancing and creative writing.

To learn more about Martina’s work, please visit www.martinakado.com.

Hamza Tayebi grew up in Morocco. In 2011, he graduated from Mohamed V University with a bachelor’s degree in English studies, and then from the Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in 2013 with a master’s degree in cultural studies. In July 2021, Hamza Tayebi defended his Ph.D. dissertation at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University. Deploying an interdisciplinary approach, Hamza’s doctoral research project was meant to examine print media coverage of religion, sexuality, and politics in post-2011 Morocco. This doctoral project was sponsored by the Moroccan National Center for Scientific and Technical Research and the Fulbright Program. In 2016, he was awarded a Fulbright research grant, which allowed him to teach and conduct research at Binghamton University, the State University of New York. Between 2018 and 2021, Hamza had worked as a professor of English and cultural studies at the International University of Rabat, Morocco. He is currently the executive director of the MENA Studies Division at Takamul Centre for Studies and Research.

“Minorities in Contemporary Morocco: Persecution, Digital Intifada and Prospects of Secularization” (2019) and “The Independent Press after the ‘Moroccan Spring’” (2015) are among Hamza Tayebi’s published articles. He also co-edited two volumes: Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in the MENA Region: Minorities, Subalternity and Resistance (2019) and Trajectories of Change in Post-2011 MENA: Challenges and Prospects (2017). His current research project explores Moroccan youth and their perceptions and attitudes towards the economic, social, and political situation in contemporary Morocco.