The KRC hosts and supports the work of doctoral and masters students in Oriental Studies, studying a wide range of different aspects of Islamic art and material culture. The KRC also acts as the hub for undergraduate teaching of Islamic art and archaeology throughout the University, not just in the Faculty of Oriental Studies but also to students in Archaeology and Anthropology, Byzantine Studies, Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, European Archaeology, History, History of Art, and World Archaeology.

Current Graduate Students

Umberto Bongianino

M.Phil. in Islamic Art and Archaeology (2011–13).

Supervisor: Prof. Jeremy Johns

Trent Jonson

Yousef Jameel Scholar in Islamic Art

M.Phil. 2009-11: 'The earliest dated gold coins of North Africa'

D.Phil. 2011– :  'A Monetary History of the Umayyad Dynasty"

Supervisor: Dr Luke Treadwell

Augustus Lersten

M.St. in Islamic Art and Archaeology (2011–12)

Supervisor: Prof. Jeremy Johns

Farhana Mannan

 M.Litt. 2006– : 'Mughal monuments of Bengal'

Supervisor: Prof. James Allan

Laura Walker

M.Phil. in Islamic Art and Archaeology (2011–13).

Supervisors: Prof. Jeremy Johns and Prof. Oliver Watson

Past Students and Alumni

Present and future students at the KRC may follow in the footsteps of past students supervised and taught by our staff, including:

Professor Marwan Abu Khalaf

D.Phil. 1985: 'Early Islamic wood work in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent'

Current Position: Associate Professor of Archaeology History of Art and Heritage, al-Quds University, Palestine

Dr Rosa Bacile

D.Phil. 2010: 'The dynastic mausolea of the Norman period in the south of Italy, c.1069-1189 : a study on the form and meaning of burial monuments in the Middle Ages'

Current Position: Independent Scholar (ex Acquisitions Registrar, Tate Modern, London).

Dr Ainsley Cameron

D.Phil. 2010:  'Painting at Devgarh: three generations of an artist family, 1756-1850'

Current Position: Senior Curator, South Asia: Rajasthan and Pahari painting, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Dr Heather Ecker

M.Phil. 1992: 'The Córdoban caliphal experiment : architectural patronage and development in tenth-century Andalusia'

D.Phil. 2000: 'From masjid to casa-mezquita : neighbourhood mosques in Seville after the Castilian conquest (1248-1634)'

Current Position: Head of Curatorial Affairs at Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada.

Dr Alain George

M.St. 2003

D.Phil 2006: 'The geometry of early Islamic calligraphy'

Current Position: Lecturer in Islamic Art, University of Edinburgh

Professor Ruba Kana'an

M.Phil. 1993: 'Patronage and style in mercantile residential architecture of Ottoman Bilad al-Sham : the Nablus region in the nineteenth century'

D.Phil. 1998: 'Jaffa and the waqf of Muḥammad Ağā Abū Nabbūt (1799-1831) : a study in the urban history of an East Mediterranean city'

Current Position: Head of Research and Publivcations, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada

Dr Lev Kapitaikin

M.St. 2002: 'The paintings of the aisle-ceilings of the Cappella Palatina, Palermo'

D.Phil. 2011: 'The Twelfth-century Paintings of the Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina, Palermo'

Current Position: Lecturer, Islamic and Christian Medieval Art, Art History Department, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Professor Dr Lorenz Korn 

M.St. 1994.

Current Position: Islamische Kunstgeschichte und Archäologie, Otto-Friedrich Universität, Bamberg, Germany

Dr Tehnyat Majeed

D.Phil 2006: 'The phenomenon of the square Kufic script : the cases of Īlkhānid Iṣfahān and Baḥrī Mamlūk Cairo'

Current Position: Adjunct Faculty, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan

Professor Robert Mason

D.Phil. 1994: 'Islamic glazed pottery: 700-1250'

Current Position: Royal Ontario Museum and Associate Professor, Department of Near and Middle-Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto, Canada

Dr Alex Metcalfe

Ph.D. Leeds, 1999: 'Arabic-speakers in Norman Sicily' (supervised Prof. J. Johns, Oxford)

Current Position: Senior Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Lancaster

Professor Marcus Milwright

D.Phil. 1999: 'Trade and patronage in middle Islamic Jordan : the ceramics from Karak castle'

Current Position: Associate Professor in medieval Islamic Art and Archaeology, University of Victoria, Canada

Dr. Amanda Phillips

D.Phil. 2010: 'Weaving as Livelihood, Style as Status: Ottoman Velvets in a Social and Economic Context, 1600-1750'

Current Position: Max Planck Fellow, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz / Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin

Dr. Farzaneh Pirouz-Moussavi

M.Phil. 1990: 'The changing taste in the depiction of women under the Qajars'

D.Phil. 2010: 'Fortunes and circumstances : an examination of the talavera industry of Puebla'

Current Position: Barakat Trust Research Fellow, KRC, Oxford.

Ms Sara Plumbly

M.St. 2006

Current Position: Islamic Art Specialist, Christie's Auction House, London

Dr Timothy Power

D.Phil. 2010: ''The Red Sea Basin during the "Long" Late Antiquity (AD 500-1000)'

Current Position: Lecturer in Islamic Archaeology, UCL - Qatar, Education City, Doha, Qatar

Dr Julian Raby

D.Phil. 1981: 'El Gran Turko : Mehmed the Conqueror as a patron of the arts of Christendom'

Current Position: Director of the Freer Gallery of Art & Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., U.S.A.

Dr Mariam Rosser-Owen

M.St. 1997: 'The political iniative for the mosque of Aḥmad ibn Ṭulūn. Imitating Sāmarrā?

D.Phil. 2004: 'Articulating the Ḥijāba: ʿĀmirid artistic and cultural patronage in Al-Andalus (c. 970-1010 AD)'

Current Position: Assistant Curator, Middle Eastern Section, Asian Department, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Professor Jochen Sokoly

M.Phil. 1992: 'Dated and datable Tiraz textiles from the time of the Fatimid Dynasty in Egypt (969-1171)'

D.Phil. 2002: 'Ṭirāz textiles from Egypt : production, administration and uses of ṭirāz textiles from Egypt under the Umayyad, ʿAbbāsid and Fāṭimid dynasties'

Current Position: Assistant Professor in Art History at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar and VCUQ Gallery Director