Dr Esther M. Villegas de la Torre is an established interdisciplinary scholar based in the United Kingdom, whose work bridges Cultural History, Comparative Literature, and Applied Linguistics. Originally from Valencia, Spain, she holds a BA (Hons), an MA, and a PhD from the University of Manchester and the University of Nottingham. Her research focuses on premodern women’s knowledge practices and their circulation through print culture in English and Romance languages.

Following the completion of her doctoral studies, Dr Villegas de la Torre collaborated on several international research projects led from the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. In 2019, she was awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship, hosted by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, with a secondment at University College London. In recognition of her scholarly expertise, she began working in 2022 as an expert evaluator and rapporteur for the European Research Executive Agency, established by the European Commission. In February 2023, she was also appointed Honorary Research Fellow at University College London.

Beyond academia, Dr Villegas de la Torre is a committed advocate for public humanities and the arts. She actively engages both specialist and non-specialist audiences through teaching, conference participation, and accessible scholarly publications. Among her notable contributions is El canto de la décima Musa: poesías del Renacimiento y el Barroco (Barcelona: Austral, 2020), an edited anthology of premodern poetry by women across six linguistic traditions. This work forms part of a five-volume series dedicated to women’s poetry from antiquity to the twentieth century.

Through her interdisciplinary expertise, international experience, and strong commitment to knowledge dissemination, Dr Esther M. Villegas de la Torre brings both intellectual leadership and enthusiasm to Arcadia. She plays a key role in guiding the organisation’s research direction and shaping its scholarly voice across global publications.