Dr Denise Bentrovato is originally from Italy and studied foreign languages, African studies, international relations, conflict resolution, and international and political history in the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom. In 2013, she completed her PhD at the Research Institute for History and Culture at the University of Utrecht, with a thesis investigating the politics of history, identity and education in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Throughout her career, she has worked in academia and for government institutions, international organisations and NGOs in Europe and Africa in the fields of peacebuilding and post-war educational reform, including UNESCO, the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) and the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI).

Her academic work combines an interest in memory politics, transitional justice and history education in Africa, and covers questions surrounding the politics and practice of history curriculum and textbook revision and the teaching and learning of sensitive and controversial histories of abuse, conflict, mass violence and genocide in post-colonial and post-war societies.