Our People

Elizabeth Papp Kamali

ekamali@law.harvard.edu

Chair of the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies

Austin Wakeman Scott Professor of Law

J.D. Harvard University, Ph.D. University of Michigan

Professor Kamali teaches criminal law and the history of English law and legal institutions. Her research focuses on the development of criminal law within the English common law tradition in the Middle Ages, in particular the evolution of the trial jury...

Omar Abdel-Ghaffar

Center for Middle East Studies

M.A. (Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies) Columbia University

B.A. (Political Science) University of California

Omar is interested in Mamluk agrarian law, practice, and administration. His interests include legal history, peasant history, and agrarian studies.

Emily Claire Adams

claireadams@fas.harvard.edu

Special Assistant for Conference Planning

Ph.D. Harvard University

Claire Adams is a special assistant to the Committee on Medieval Studies, managing logistical and financial planning for the 2025 Medieval Academy of American annual meeting on the Harvard campus, and the Department of History's Catalog and Curriculum...

Walid Akef

wakef@g.harvard.edu

History of Art and Architecture

Walid Akef is a PhD candidate in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University. He specializes in the architectural history of the pre-modern Mediterranean world, with a focus on North Africa, southern Italy, and Iberia. His research...

Dimiter Angelov

dangelov@fas.harvard.edu

Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History

Chair, Ph.D. Program in Byzantine Studies

Ph.D. Harvard University

Professor Angelov's research addresses the intellectual and political history of the Byzantine world after the tenth century. Among his publications are Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium (1204-1330) (Cambridge University Press, 2007)...

Masoud Ariankhoo

ariankhoo@fas.harvard.edu

Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

MTS (Islamic Studies) Harvard Divinity School; M.A Stony Brook University

B.A. University of Malaya

Masoud is a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He received an MA in History from Stony Brook University, and an MTS in Islamic Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Masoud's research focuses on the character of the Devil in the...

Juan Manuel Arias

Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

B.A. (Literature) Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)

M.A. (Literature) Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)

Juan's research interests include the transmission and translation of stories and exempla through the Middle Ages; comparative literature and folklore; fables and other animal tales from the late Middle Ages and the early modern period; literary...

Andrew Bair

andrewbair@g.harvard.edu

Department of Anthropology - Archaeology Program

M.A. (Anthropology) - University of Denver

B.A. (Archaeology & Computer Science) - Columbia University

Andrew is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology interested in changes to rural life in medieval Ireland. He is a field archaeologist specializing in landscape archaeology and geophysical survey. Andrew is also the co-director of the Castles in Communities...

Saaleh Baseer

saalehbaseer@g.harvard.edu

Department of History & Middle Eastern Studies

B.A., Columbia University

Saaleh is a PhD candidate in the joint History and Middle Eastern studies program, where he studies postclassical Hanafi legal theory, Persian philosophy, and procedural law in the Ottoman-Mughal empires. He earned his BA at Columbia University & also...

Saskia Behrens

sbehrens@fas.harvard.edu

Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures

M.Phil (Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic Studies), University of Cambridge

M.A. (Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Studies; English), University of Aberdeen

Saskia Behrens focuses on comparative approaches to Irish literature, in particular the transmission and reception of Classical narratives in medieval Ireland, with an overarching interest in wider Indo-European cultural and linguistic transfer.

Josiah Blackmore

jblackmore@fas.harvard.edu

Nancy Clark Smith Professor of the Language and Literature of Portugal

Ph.D. Harvard University

Josiah Blackmore is a scholar of Iberian literature and culture, with a focus on medieval and early modern Portuguese writing. He is the author of Manifest Perdition: Shipwreck Narrative and the Disruption of Empire (University of Minnesota Press, 2002)...

Suzanne Preston Blier

blier@fas.harvard.edu

Allen Whitehill Clowes Chair of Fine Arts

Ph.D. Columbia University

On leave 2025 - 2026

Suzanne Preston Blier teaches in the departments of History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies, and is an affiliate member of the Committee on Medieval Studies. Her research addresses the history of African art and...