Kukku Melkas is a Senior Lecturer in Finnish Literature at the University of Turku, Finland, and an Adjunct Professor in Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Oulu, as well as the Head of the Board (2020–) of the Finnish Literature Society. She held a position at the Department of Scandinavian and Finnish Studies at the University of Cologne, where she served as an Associate Professor from September 2022 to March 2025. Her expertise and publications focus on Finnish literature and its relations to Nordic literary cultures, on feminist literary criticism and gender studies, and on environmental humanities.