People

Salmaan Keshavjee

Salmaan_Keshavjee@hms.harvard.edu

CMES Interim Director

Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Keshavjee is a professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as a physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He...

Leila Ahmed

leila_ahmed@harvard.edu

Victor S. Thomas Research Professor of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School

Leila Ahmed came to the Divinity School in 1999 as the first professor of women's studies in religion and was appointed to the Victor S. Thomas chair in 2003. Prior to her appointment at HDS, she was professor of women's studies and Near Eastern studies...

Dimiter Angelov

dangelov@fas.harvard.edu

Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History

Dimiter Angelov is Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History at Harvard University. His research and teaching focus on the intellectual, political, and institutional history of the Byzantine Empire. His diverse scholarly interests include empire and...

Ali Asani

aliasani@fas.harvard.edu

Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies

Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures

Committee on the Study of Religion and Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Ali Asani is Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures. After completing his high school education in Kenya, he attended Harvard College, with a concentration in the comparative...

Ran Bechor

rbechor@fas.harvard.edu

Preceptor in Modern Hebrew, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Ran Bechor is an educator, Hebrew playwright, and theater director. He was the principal of a school for the gifted in Jerusalem. Bechor had previously initiated and managed an Arabic language school through theater. A former fellow of the Mandel school...

Lorenzo Bondioli

Assistant Professor of History

On leave for the 2025-26 academic year. Lorenzo Bondioli's work investigates the political economy of medieval Islamic empires, aiming to lay bare the antagonistic symbiosis between the merchant and ruling classes, and the ever-embattled entanglement of...

Nicholas John Boylston

boylston@fas.harvard.edu

Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

On leave for the 2025-26 academic year Nicholas Boylston is a scholar of classical Persian literature and Persianate Islam. His research focuses on themes of diversity and unity in the writings of Sufis, philosophers and litterateurs from the Persianate...

Rosie Bsheer

rbsheer@fas.harvard.edu

Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of History

On leave fall 2025. Rosie Bsheer is a historian of the modern Middle East. Her teaching and research interests center on Arab intellectual and social movements, petro-capitalism and state formation, and the production of historical knowledge and...

Melani Cammett

mcammett@g.harvard.edu

Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs in the Department of Government

Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs

On leave for the 2025-26 academic year. Melani Cammett is Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs in the Department of Government and Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Her research explores...

Steven Caton

caton@wjh.harvard.edu

Khalid Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud Professor of Contemporary Arab Studies Emeritus, Department of Anthropology

Since the beginning of his career, Caton has been a specialist of Arabic and the Middle East, with an emphasis on Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula. His earliest work was in anthropological linguistics and poetics which culminated in his first book, Peaks...

Houssem Chachia

hchachia@fas.harvard.edu

Shawwaf Visiting Associate Professor, 2025-26

Associate Professor of Early Modern History, University of Tunis

Houssem Eddine Chachia is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Tunis. His research intricately explores the complex historical trajectories of the Moriscos and Sephardic Jews—two communities profoundly affected by the socio...

Richard Cozzens

richard_cozzens@fas.harvard.edu

Preceptor in Arabic, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Richard Cozzens has been teaching Arabic for over ten years in a variety of institutions. He received his A.B. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Music from Harvard and has lived at length in Syria and Jordan for study and work. Mr. Cozzens...