Melina is the Schröder Research Associate and an Affiliated Lecturer in the German section, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, and a College Research Associate at King’s College, Cambridge.

Positioned at the intersection of political science, literary and cultural scholarship, her research explores how citizenship is imagined and narrated in novels, political theory, and policy discourses. This currently takes the form of two major projects, one focusing on historical narratives of citizenship in 20th-century German novels, the second on utopian and dystopian discourses around future forms of citizenship in contemporary literary fiction and policy in Germany and the UK.

In its broadest terms, Melina’s work is dedicated to critically examining and furthering the relationship between cultural production and social and epistemic justice. Her current research is aligned with an international EU Horizon/UKRI project, ‘The Cartography of the Political Novel in Europe’, which investigates how the political novel contributes to understandings of local and global politics, and how it may be used as a means of political experience, protest, and participation. She is also lead-convenor of the cross-faculty research seminar Cultural Production and Social Justice, which explores the role of the arts and humanities in creating an ethical and sustainable societal future.

Prior to her current role, Melina held an AHRC post-doctoral fellowship, also at Cambridge. Her PhD, completed at Cambridge in 2022, was supported by scholarships from the AHRC and King’s College, as well as an honorary Vice-Chancellor’s Award. Melina holds a BA in International Studies from Goldsmiths, an MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MPhil in European Literature and Culture from the University of Cambridge.