New Faces at CSMC

10 August 2023

Photo: CSMC

This August, we welcome several new doctoral researchers and a new professor of Assyriology at at the Centre.

Vivian Berto de Castro joins the Cluster as a doctoral researcher to work on a dissertation entitled ‘Copying Practices, Exchanges, and Knowledge Production: Copies of Mesoamerican Codices and Lienzos in the Nineteenth Century’. She will be part of 'Archiving Artefacts' (Research Field E) and is supervised by Margit Kern.

*

Nicole Brisch joins UWA as the new Professor of Assyriology. Before moving to Hamburg, she was Associate Professor of Assyriology at the University of Copenhagen. Her research interests include ancient Mesopotamian literature, especially written in Sumerian, as well as religious and economic history. Her most recent book, co-edited with Fumi Karahashi (Japan), includes a range of articles by junior and senior scholars revolving around the topic of women and religion in the ancient Near East and Asia. She currently works on the religious rituals and their archival documentation.

*

Stefano Farinella joins the Cluster as a doctoral researcher to work on a project entitled ‘Knowledge Transformation and Strands of Notation: Thomas Harriot’s (1560–1621) working notes as a representation of early modern scientific practice’. He will be part of 'Keeping Note(book)s' (Research Field G) and is supervised by Matthias Schemmel.

*

Aikaterini Grigoriadou will also pursue a dissertation project, which is entitled ‘A multidisciplinary approach in the study of philosophical notes on Aristotle’s Organon: The case of the manuscript Bologna 3637’. She too will be part of 'Keeping Note(book)s' (Research Field G) and is supervised by Christian Brockmann and José Maksimczuk. 

*

Malgozata Grzelec joined us as a doctoral researcher who will pursue her PhD project in cooperation with DESY. She is part of the project ‘Measurements of Paper Components’ (Research Field A) and is supervised by Agnieszka Helman-Wazny (UWA) and Sylvio Haas (DESY).

*

Michael Hensley also joins the Cluster as a doctoral researcher. His dissertation project is called ‘Reconstructing the Library of Däbrä Ḥayḳ Estifanos: A Study of Ethiopic Book Lists and Manuscripts’. He will be part of 'Archiving Artefacts' (Research Field E) and is supervised by Aaron Butts. 

*

Niloofar Homayoonzad has started a PhD at the Cluster as well. Her dissertation project is entitled ‘Zoroastrian Scribes and Scribal Practices during the Safavid Period (1501-1722)’ and will be part of 'Formating Multigraphic Artefacts' (Research Field I). She is supervised by Shervin Farridnejad. 

*

Jannis Kostelnik joins the Cluster as a doctoral researcher to pursue a project on ‘Jula and Mooré Ajami Medicinal Manuscripts from Burkina Faso’. He will be part of 'Exploring Multilingual Written Artefacts' (Research Field H) and is supervised by Dmitry Bondarev.