We are pleased to announce the addition of some outstanding scholars in the Department of Nestorian Studies. Dr. Erica C.D. Hunter is Associate Dean of Research and Senior Lecturer in Eastern Christianity, Dept. of History, Religions and Philosophies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She is Co-chair, Centre of World Christianity, Dept. of Religions & Philosophies, SOAS, University of London. Her research interests focus on Christianity in Iraq and its outreach in Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan and China.

She is joined by Dr. Li Tang. Dr. Tang, born in China. She received a Bachelor of Economics in Economics and English at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, with further studies in Theology at Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, UK and at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. She earned her Master of Arts in Religion from the Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, Tennessee, USA. She completed her Doktor der Philosophie from University of Tübingen, Germany in Languages and Cultures of the Christian Orient, with a postdoctoral fellowship in Religion and Globalisation held at the National University of Singapore.  Since 2005 she has been Senior Research Fellow and University Lecturer at the Department of Biblical Studies and Church History. She held Visiting Fellowships at the Faculty of Divinity and at Clare Hall of the University of Cambridge, UK. Dr. Li Tang specializes in the history of Christianity in Asian Context, especially in the history of Syriac Christianity in China, Central Asia and along the Silk Road. She has conducted fieldwork along the Silk Road, in China, India, Sri Lanka and in the Middle East.

Additionally we are very privileged to have Drs. Sebastian Brock and David G K Taylor assisting as consultants from the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. Most recently, Pier Giorgio Borbone has also agreed to serve as a Research Fellow, along with Dr. Anthony Watson. Anthony J. Watson is Master of Islamic and Asian History at Woodberry Forest and Director of that school’s new Silk Road Program. He has a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge and a M.Div. in Islamic Studies from Harvard. Much of his primary research focuses on imperial power and authority and the Church of the East. His historical work focuses on the travel narratives, chronicles, hagiographies, and intellectual histories contextualizing interaction between cultures on the medieval Silk Road, and in Persia and Central Asia.

Dr. Mark Dickens will be arriving in Almaty for research related to the Ilyn Balik excavation, joined by Dr. Steven Ortiz who serves as Director of the Tandy Archeological Institute, which assisted Kazakhstan archeologists in this excavation, funded by the Eurasian Exploration Society. Dr. Dickens will be presenting an academic seminar at the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences on the topic: “Echoes of a Forgotten Presence: Reconstructing the History of the Church of the East in Central Asia.”