Professor Esra Özyürek | Academic Director
Esra Özyürek joined the University of Cambridge after having taught at the London School of Economics and University of California, San Diego. She holds the Sultan Qaboos Chair in Abrahamic Faiths and Shared Values. Esra’s research explores the tension between the universalism and particularism of globally appealing religious and post-religious belief and value systems. She has published widely, including Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust memory and Muslim belonging in postwar Germany (Stanford 2023), now available also in a German language edition Stellvertreter der Schuld (Klett-Cotta 2025), Being German, becoming Muslim: Race, religion, and conversion in the New Europe (2015), and Nostalgia for the modern: State secularism and everyday politics in Turkey (2006).
Professor Daniel Weiss | Deputy Director
Daniel H. Weiss joined the Faculty of Divinity in 2010 as Polonsky–Coexist Lecturer in Jewish Studies, having previously taught at the University of Virginia and at Oberlin College. He earned his PhD at the University of Virginia, after having received his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a Masters of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School. Prof Weiss's research interests include the study of Judaism, theories and practices of interreligious communication, and philosophy of religion. He resumed a role as acting Chair of the Management Committee from October 2024, the month that also marked his elevation to an associate professorship.
Dr Giles Waller | Research Associate
Giles Waller joined the team in 2014. Formerly assisting CIP’s former Director Professor David Ford, he remains Sultan Qaboos Research Associate, with a percentage of his time dedicated to CIP. From 2019 to 2021, he was seconded as Teaching Associate in Christian Theology in the Faculty of Divinity. Giles read Theology and Religious Studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he also completed an MPhil. His doctoral research, also at Peterhouse, focused on the borderlands of Christian doctrine, literature, and philosophy, looking at the theological reception of Greek tragedy, with a particular comparative interest in Martin Luther’s theology of the cross. In 2011, along with Kevin Taylor, Giles edited a collection that brought together theologians and literary scholars, Christian Theology and Tragedy: Theologians, Tragic Literature and Tragic Theory (Ashgate), to which he contributed an essay on the role of tragedy in the work of Donald MacKinnon. As of 2025, Giles leads Outreach activity at the Faculty of Divinity and is also charged with developing postgraduate teaching in the domain of theology and literature.
Dr Iona Hine | Programme Manager (Partnerships and Engagement)
Iona Hine returned to the Divinity Faculty in 2021, having completed an undergraduate Theology degree twenty years earlier. In mid-2023, Iona assumed a new role with specific responsibility for developing CIP’s partnerships and external engagements, including via the establishment of the Cambridge Interfaith Knowledge Hub. Outside academia, Iona has worked for the Church of England (as Mail Order & Web Manager of Church House Bookshop) and in secondary education (PGCE Religious Studies, Roehampton 2007). Iona's PhD, a study of early modern bible translation focused on the book of Ruth, was undertaken at the University of Sheffield, UK in 2014. A related article, 'Modelled on Zurich: a fresh study of Miles Coverdale's 1535 bible', won the 2021 Fredson Bowers Memorial Prize for outstanding textual scholarship. At Sheffield, Iona has worked as a research associate in Digital Humanities, most recently producing a free open access digital edition of H.W. Cassirer's collected works (cassirer.org, 2021). Iona has a track record of supporting impactful research and a specialism in public engagement, inputting to REF case studies in 2014 and 2021. Contributions to teaching in History and English at Sheffield led to Iona's recognition as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Iona also has an MA in Jewish-Christian Relations (CJCR/APU, 2003).
Dr Anastasia Badder | Research Associate
Anastasia Badder joined the Faculty of Divinity in July 2022, as a Research Associate affiliated with Cambridge Interfaith Programme. She provides grantwriting support to Professor Özyürek and colleagues, as well as leading work in the domain of religious education, and developing new research and networks on topics including religious language and materialities. In 2023, she took on responsibility for the research element of the project Water efficiency in faith and diverse communities, leading to enhanced engagement with the environmental humanities. Prior to Cambridge, Anastasia was based at the University of Luxembourg and she maintains active connections with researchers there. Her core research ethnographically explores contemporary Jewish lives and languages in Europe. She holds a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College, an MA in Anthropology from the University of Auckland, and a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Luxembourg.
Mrs Anna Williams
Anna Williams joined the team in February 2025, working as part-time administrator for the Programme and adjacent projects. Anna has previously worked in administration at the University and for the NHS.
Management Committee
In addition to ex officio members (including the Chair of the Faculty Board from the Faculty of Divinity and the Head of the School of Arts and Humanities), the following persons are presently serving on our Management Committee:
Professor Jörg Haustein | Member of Management Committee
Jörg Haustein joined the Faculty in 2019 after teaching Religions in Africa at at the School of Oriental and African Studies (2013–2019), and Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at the University of Heidelberg (2003–2013). He earned his PhD at Heidelberg with a study of Ethiopian Pentecostalism (2009), and completed his habilitation at the University of Heidelberg with a study of German colonialism and Islam in East Africa (2020).
Professor Katharine Dell | Member of Management Committee
Katharine Dell is Professor of Old Testament Literature and Theology in the Faculty of Divinity, and a Fellow and Director of Studies in Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion, St Catharine's College. Her term on CIP’s Management Committee commenced in 2023.
[Page last updated: May 2025.]