Andrea Janku teaches Chinese History at SOAS, University of London. Her research interests include famine in Chinese history, environmental history, and processes of communication and globalization in the early modern world. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled 'Integrating the Body Politic: Famine, the Press, and the Chinese Nation.'

Gerrit J. Schenk is Professor for the History of the Middle Ages at Darmstadt University, Germany, and Research Group Leader "Cultures of Disaster" at the Karl Jaspers Centre, University of Heidelberg, Germany. He is the co-founder of a scholarly network on historical disaster research.

Franz Mauelshagen is a Research Fellow at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany. His publications include authored books, edited volumes and many articles on climate history, environmental history, in particular the history of natural disasters, and media on the early modern period.