Robin Rose Southard (1995) studied history and archival science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2013-2018), here she developped an interest in late eighteenth century court cases and their unexpected wealth of historical sensation. This led to her writing a thesis concerning involuntary confinement and its effect on familial and kin relationships for which she recieved the De Bock-Doehaerd award 2017.

In November of 2020 she was engaged as a doctoral student of History at the VUB. She is curently working on a four year project under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wouter Ryckbosch entitled: "The Urban Food Supply: Reality and Fiction of the Corporative System". In this project she is studying the urban food supply of early modern cities in a corporative context, with a particular focus on how this ties into regulation, conflict and supplication within guilds and other socio-economic actors in the Southern Netherlands. 

She is affiliated with the Center for Historical Research into Urban Transformation Processes (HOST). Her professional interests lay in the fields socio-economic and cultural history and she’s always down for an early modern court battle.