Yrjö Engeström is Professor Emeritus of Education at University of Helsinki and Professor Emeritus of Communication at University of California, San Diego. He is Director of the Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) in Helsinki, and visiting profesor at Rhodes University, South Africa, and University West, Sweden. Engeström applies and develops cultural-historical activity theory and the theory of expansive learning in studies of transformations in education, work, communities and social movements. He is known for the methodology of formative interventions and the Change Laboratory. His recent books include Learning by Expanding (2nd Edition, 2015), Studies in Expansive Learning (2016), Expertise in Transition (2018), and Concept Formation in the Wild (2024), all published by Cambridge University Press.

From 1995 to 2000, Engeström served as Academy Professor appointed by the Academy of Finland. From 2000 to 2005, he led a National Center of Excellence in Research. Engeström received an honorary doctorate at University of Oslo in 2005 and at University of Ioannina in 2018. In 2021 he received a lifetime achievement award of the Cultural-Historical Research SIG of the American Educational Research Association. Also in 2021, he was appointed Honorary Vice-Dean of the Jing Xiu College of Teacher Education at the Capital Normal University, Beijing, China. In 2023, his research team received the ‘Best Practice-Based Research Award’ at the EAPRIL conference.

Annalisa Sannino is an internationally known learning scientist and a leading authority in cultural-historical activity theory and formative interventions. Since 2018, she is Full Professor at Tampere University, Faculty of Education and Culture, where she also leads the research team RESET (Research Engangement for Sustainable and Equitable Transformations) which has become a partner with policy makers and the civil society toward eradicating homelessness in Finland. She is President of the International Society for Cultural Historical and Activity Research (ISCAR). She completed her PhD in Social Psychology at University of Nancy, France in 2000. She has an extensive record of mobility across international and interdisciplinary borders with long periods and appointments in American, Australian, Finnish, French, Italian, South African and Swedish universities. In Finland, before Tampere, she worked as Academy Research Fellow at the Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE), University of Helsinki from 2011 to 2017. Results of her research have appeared in numerous publications including three co-edited books, by Cambridge University Press (2009, 2023) and Routledge (2013). A forthcoming book presenting her TADS theory of transformative agency is scheduled to be published by Cambridge University Press.