Notes on Contributors
Gaby Abousamra (PhD 2002, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne, Paris) is Professor of Epigraphy and Ancient Semitic Languages in the Department of Archaeology, Lebanese University (Beirut). His research interests include Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic inscriptions.
Ohad Abudraham (PhD 2017, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Hebrew and Semitic Languages at Tel Aviv University. His research interests include Aramaic dialectology, Hebrew and Aramaic epigraphy, and Jewish magic.
Siam Bhayro (PhD 2000, University College London) is Associate Professor in Early Jewish Studies at the University of Exeter. His research interests include the Bible, Semitic languages, medicine in the Christian and Islamic orient, and Jewish magic.
David Calabro (PhD 2014, The University of Chicago) is Curator of Eastern Christian Manuscripts at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in Collegeville, Minnesota. His research focuses on the intersection of language and culture in the Near East, including topics such as nonverbal communication, sacred space, ritual, and magic.
Nils H. Korsvoll (PhD 2017, MF Norwegian School of Theology) is Associate Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Agder (Kristiansand, Norway). His research interests include magic and ritual practice in Late Antiquity, material culture, provenance and critical theory, popular religion, and religious education. He teaches broadly within religious studies and religious education, and is a member of the Young Academy of Norway.
Matthew Morgenstern (PhD 2002, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is Professor in Hebrew and Semitic Languages at Tel Aviv University. His research interests include the grammar and lexicography of Eastern Aramaic, and the Hebrew and Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Marco Moriggi (PhD 2003, Università di Firenze) is Associate Professor in Semitic Philology at the Università di Catania, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. His research interests include Syriac incantation bowls, Syriac language, Aramaic epigraphy in late antique Mesopotamia and the Gulf, and Aramaic dialectology. His latest title with Brill (together with Ilaria Bucci) is Aramaic Graffiti from Hatra: A Study based on the Archive of the Missione Archeologica Italiana (2019).
Abigail Pearson (PhD 2021, University of Exeter) researches the transmission of technical lore from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Her doctoral thesis examined the extent to which we can trace a continuous Syriac magic tradition from Late Antiquity to the present day, exploring the circumstances that encouraged or necessitated innovations to Syriac magic texts and practices over time. She is also interested in the application of Digital Humanities technologies to Syriac studies, and has helped to develop handwritten text recognition models that can automatically transcribe Syriac manuscripts.
Michael Zellmann-Rohrer (PhD 2016, University of California, Berkeley) is a researcher in the Institut für Wissensgeschichte des Altertums at the Freie Universität, Berlin. He is a member of the project ZODIAC on the history of zodiacal astrology, an editor of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, and an associate editor of the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, with further research interests in papyrology, late antique and Byzantine studies, and the history of religion and magic in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean.