Past Visiting scholars
Those shown below are recent Visiting Scholars affiliated with Cambridge Interfaith Programme.
Academic Visitors within the Faculty of Divinity are welcome to join the Interfaith Research Forum during their visit. Official Visitors from outside the Faculty of Divinity are also able to affiliate via the Interfaith Research Forum.
Ms Maira Guardscione, 2024
Maira visited the Cambridge Interfaith Programme as an Erasmus+ trainee from September to November 2024. During her time in Cambridge, she acted as a translator, adapting resources from the Scripture and Violence project, under the guidance of Professor Daniel Weiss. Maira returned to Italy to complete her Masters degree at the University of Turin, Italy.
Dr Deniz Cosan Eke | Visiting Scholar, 2023
Dr Deniz Cosan Eke was a Visiting Scholar with the Cambridge Interfaith Programme in summer 2023. Based at the University of Vienna, Deniz teaches and researches in the recently-formed Department for Alevi Theological Studies. Deniz is also part of the EU-funded COST action “Connecting theory and practical issues of migration and religious diversity” (COREnet), leading a working group exploring Migration and religious diversity through the lenses of gender and age.
Dr Lisa Agaiby | Visiting Scholar, 2023
Lisa's research interests include Coptic Studies, Christian-Arabic Studies, Manuscript Studies. Since 2018 she has been leading a project to digitise, document and catalogue the entire collection of manuscripts at the ancient Coptic Monastery of St Paul the Hermit at the Red Sea, Egypt.
Dr Kübra Zeynep Sarıaslan | Visiting Scholar, 2022–2023
A social anthropologist, Dr Sarıaslan received her PhD in 2018 from the University of Zurich. Feminist ethnography, development and gender, media anthropology and journalism, transnational politics, Turkey, and Europe are all areas of interest. With the most recent research projects, she aims to contribute to an interdisciplinary debate by demonstrating new forms of engagement with transnational politics via digital news making. Learn more about her work (external website).
Prof Mahinda Deegalle | Visiting Scholar, 2022–2023
Professor Deegalle is an ordained Buddhist monk and is also trained in the discipline of the History of Religions. From his undergraduate days, he has actively engaged in and subsequently published in the area of inter-religious dialogue. He is currently writing on Śrīpāda (Adam’s Peak) pilgrimage which draws pilgrims from the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian faiths.
Dr Naira Sahakyan | Visiting Scholar, 2022–2023
Dr Naira Sahakyan earned her PhD from the University of Amsterdam. She is currently a senior researcher at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, and teaching at the American University of Armenia and Yerevan State Universities. She is author of Muslim Reformers and the Bolsheviks: The Case of Daghestan (Routledge, 2022).
Dr Nisan Alici | Visiting Scholar, 2022–2023
Nisan holds a PhD from the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University, where she explored prospects for transitional justice in the ongoing Kurdish conflict from a grassroots-oriented approach. She is co-founder of Demos Research Association where she has been involved in research projects on peace, gender, and transitional justice. Nisan teaches at the intersection of politics and law. Discover more about Dr Alici's research (external website).
Prof Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom | Affiliated scholar, 2022–2023
Professor Ben-Nun Bloom was a Visiting Scholar at CRASSH during the academic year 2022–2023. She is the director of the Political Psychology Laboratory at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specialising in political psychology and comparative political behaviour including religiosity, morality, urban studies, spatial behaviour, and behavioural public administration. Her research agenda examines the conditions under which enduring values – particularly religion and morality – hinder or enhance democratic norms. View Professor Ben-Nun Bloom's CRASSH profile (external website).