Dr. Federico Montinaro

Research Group Leader

Studies in Ancient, Byzantine and Islamic History Italy, and Paris, awarded a Ph.D. in Byzantine History in 2013 at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE)-Sorbonne. In Tübingen since 2015, first as a postdoctoral researcher in the Collaborative Research Centre 923 “Threatened Orders”, then as a substitute chair for Ancient History, currently as leader of his own research group. His webpage at the Institute of Ancient History.

Dr. Habib Ibrahim

Research Associate (Postdoc)

He earned his Ph.D. from the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 2016, with a thesis on John of Damascus in the Arabic tradition. His edition of several of John's anti-Miaphysite and anti-Iconoclast treatises in Arabic will soon be published in the Patrimoine arabe chrétien collection. His main research focus has since been on the authors and translators of hagiography in Antioch during the eleventh century. He has published the abridged version of the Antiochian Menologion of Yūḥannā ʿAbd al-Masīḥ and, more recently, identified a corpus of Ibn Sirri's works (ninth century). In Tübingen, he will be working on the early Melkite canonical collection. His webpage at the Institute for Ancient History.

Dr. Jeffrey Berland

Research Associate (Postdoc)

Fritz Thyssen Foundation

He earned a joint Ph.D. in 2023 from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris Sciences et Lettres) and the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, with a dissertation titled “The Franks, the Papacy, and Byzantium: The Formation of an Ideological Rivalry during the Eighth Century.” His postdoctoral project, titled “Imperial Recognition and ‘Ecclesiological Compatibility’: Frankish-Byzantine Relations ca. 800-850,” is funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and aims to evaluate the issue of mutual recognition of imperial authority and Christian orthodoxy between the Frankish and Byzantine polities, particularly during the period known as the “Second Iconoclasm” (815-843).

Dr. Oksana Goncharko

Research Associate

Degree (Diploma), PhD (Candidate) in Logic, MA in Byzantine and Neo-Hellenic Philology, Saint Petersburg. Her research will focus on religious debate associated with the revival of ‘Manichaean’ movements in the 8^th and 9^th centuries across the Near East and Eastern Europe. Her webpage at the Institute for Ancient History.

Daniil Pleshak

Research Associate

BA, MA and Aspirantura in Lingusitics (Languages of the Bible and Byzantine Greek) in Saint Petersburg. Summer School 2018 at Boğazici University in Istanbul. His dissertation focuses on the correspondence of Patriarch Photius of Constantinople (858-67 and 878-86). His webpage at the Institute of Ancient History.

Maren Biener

Research Assistant

Since 2021, teacher training in History and Mathematics in Tübingen.

Anastasiia Buianova

Research Assistant

Degree in Computational linguistic from HSE Moscow. Currently enrolled in the Medical School at the University of Tübingen and teaching since 2018.

Markus-Piet Kleemann

Research Assistant

Currently working towards his BA in History in Tübingen.

Dr. Luca Farina

Research Associate (Postdoc)

BA, MA Padua and Venice, PhD Padua, Verona and Paris (EPHE) 2022 with a dissertation on Astrologia e astronomia araba nella Costantinopoli paleologa. He is the winner of the "Antonio Garzya" Dissertation Prize 2020. He attended the Course of Greek Palaeography at the Vatican Library, was a Visiting Scholar at the Maison Française d'Oxford in 2022 and, with a DAAD scholarship, at the University of Mainz. In Tübingen, he investigated the early development of the Melkite collection of canon law. He is currently a fellow at the École Française de Rome.

Viola Oßwald

Research Assistant

Since 2019, teacher training in History and German in Tübingen.