Comte Xavier Brau de Saint-Pol Lias (4 July 1840, Seix (Ariège), France - 6 May 1914, Paris) was a French explorer, naturalist and travel writer who visited Java and Sumatra in 1876, then Tonkin, Cochinchina, Cambodia and Malaysia in 1884. He used to take photographs of the places he visited.Born… Read more

Eugène Pujarniscle ( 16 May 1881, Solliès-Toucas, France - 15 Oct. 1951, Phnom Penh, Cambodia) was a French educator and novelist who offered his own definition of "colonial literature".A secondary school teacher in France, he resolved to leave for French Indochina in 1912, where he taught… Read more

Charles Robequain (23 June 1897, Auberives, Isère, France -  28 Sept. 1963, Rennes, France) was a French geographer, historian, economist and writer, amateur photographer, a pioneer in colonial and tropical geography who produced the first field-based doctoral monograph in geography on a region in… Read more

Madeleine Colani (13 Aug 1866, Strasbourg - June 1943, Hanoi) was a French educator, geologist and archaeologist who explored the northern Vietnamese of Hòa Bình in the 1929s, and published in 1930 the first comprehensive study on the megaliths of Upper Laos, cataloging around ten thousand of these… Read more

Pierre Singaravélou (b. 18 Jan 1977, Bordeaux, France) is a French historian, a British Academy Global Professor of History at King's College, London, a Professor of Modern History at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, and the director of the Center for Asian History (Sorbonne). He specializes… Read more

Rémi Abad is a professional photographer and journalist based in Siem Reap, Cambodia.In 2022, he joined Angkor Travel Photography, a photo tour and workshop agency launched in 2012 by photographers Alessandro Vannucci, Régis Binard and Chris Cusick. Themed tours ('Hidden Angkor', 'Secrets of… Read more

George D. Bonnyman (?-?) was a British Navy officer, Captain of the brig Pantaloon when the ship was commissioned for a commercial exploratory trip to Cambodia and Siam in February-June 1851, and again in September-November of that year.Little is known of him, except that he left notices on the… Read more

Ludvig Verner Helms [Verner Ludvig on his birth certificate] (14 April 1825, Varde, Denmark – 26 July 1918, Hampstead, England) was a merchant, explorer and author of Danish ascent who was active in trade across Southeast Asia during for twenty-eight years as a trader associated with British… Read more

Louis Adolphe Bonard (27 March 1805, Cherbourg, France - 31 March 1867, Vanves, France) was a French naval officer who was governor of Cochinchina from 1861 to 1863 and, while campaigning against the insurrections, visited Angkor in September 1962. A graduate of École Polytechnique in 1825, he… Read more

Félix Honore Sauveur Julien (1 Jan 1824, Toulon, France-1890) was a French navy officer (Lt de vaisseau) and author of biographies related to the history of the French Navy.An alumnus of Ecole Polytechnique (Promotion 1842), where he befriended Doudard de Lagree, he started his naval career on… Read more

Udayan Das is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India, and a doctoral candidate at the Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University. An Associate Fellow (Honorary) at the Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies, he was… Read more

Hermann Kulke (b. 1938, Berlin) is a German historian and Indologist, a former professor of South and Southeast Asian history at the Department of History, Kiel University (1988–2003). After receiving his PhD in Indology from Freiburg University in 1967, he taught for 21 years at the South Asia… Read more

Pierre-Yves Manguin (b. 1945) is a maritime archaeologist and historian, Professor Emeritus at Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, a specialist in Funan and Srivijaya civilizations as part of of his focus on the history of the maritime façade of pre-modern Southeast Asia, with a particular emphasis… Read more

Louis de Carné (16 March 1842, Quimper, France - 28 Nov 1870, Plomelin, France)  was a French diplomat and explorer who took part in the Mission d'exploration du Mékong in 1865-6.In 1863, de Carné joined the Commercial Section of the French Foreign Ministry. According to his father, also… Read more

Yang Baoyun 杨保筠 is a researcher in Indian and Taoic religions, as well as Chinese foreign relations history at University of Peking, School of International Studies (SIS), Beijing, China, an adivsor to the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Beijing, and a visiting professor in ASEAN history at… Read more

Tim Bewer (b. Wisconsin, USA) is a travel writer and Thailand history researcher who runs since 2012 Isan Explorer tour company, organizing slow travel cultural tours in Northeast Thailand.After visiting Thailand for the first time in 1997 during a six-nation Southeast Asia backpacking trip, he… Read more

Oknha Suttantaprījā [Sothnpreychea] Ind សុត្តន្តប្រីជាឥន្ទ (22 July 1859, Rokar Korng Village, Kandal Province – 8 Nov. 1924, Battambang) was a Cambodian monk and writer whose work is considered as "pivotal" in the Cambodian literature transitional period between tradition and modernity. His stanza… Read more

Sok Nalys សុខ ណាលីស is a Royal Ballet of Cambodia dancer, a dance teacher and a heritage preservation researcher with DC-CAM (2020-2021), the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts (General Department of Cultural Techniques, since 2021). Nalys contributes research on cultural heritage to Angkor Database… Read more

Chen Neak ចិន្ទ នាគ (29 Dec. 1946, Kompong Cham Province - 2 Sep. 2011, unknown) was a speak-theater professor, a writer and a member of the Research Committee on Culture and Arts at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts (MCFA).Chen Neak was born into a poor peasant family in Kampong Cham province,… Read more

Ernest Marie Louis de Gonzague Doudart (or Doudard [1]) de Lagrée [after 1862 Doudart de La Grée, the original spelling of his ancestors' name] (31 March 1823, Saint-Vincent-de-Mercuze, France - 12 March 1868 à Tong-Tchouen [2], Yunnan) was a French Navy officer, explorer, archaeologist and… Read more