Kevin Henry Villanueva (范楷涵 Fan, Kai-Han) was born in the Philippines, in 1971. He was educated at the Assumption Convent in Iloilo City, after which he proceeded to the University of the Philippines and then the Ateneo de Manila, finishing a degree in the Humanities with cognates in Philosophy and Literature.

In 1997 he left for Europe, where he learned and read language, politics, and culture at the University of Salamanca, the Sorbonne, and Sciences-Po, and became a Spanish citizen ten years later. He studied International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science for his Master of Science and received his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds.

After living nearly two decades in Europe, working at the University of Deusto, lecturing at the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice, and training with various international organizations, including the Philippine Embassy in Madrid, UNESCO in Paris, International Alert in London and the European Commission in Brussels, he went back to his native country to lecture at the Helena Z. Benitez School of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Philippine Women’s University.

Upon his return to the University of the Philippines in 2016, he was invited as associate professor, and subsequently as fellow, dedicating himself to writing on international politics and teaching ethics. In 2014 he went to the University of Sydney in Australia where his first explorations of language and social semiotics were set in train. He was awarded the ASEAN Fulbright Fellowship in 2018, at the American University’s School of International Service in Washington D.C. and the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Fellowship in 2020, at the Institute of Strategic and International Affairs in National Chung Cheng University. He is now Associate Professorial fellow of Ethics and International Relations at the University of the Philippines.