Virtual Visiting Fellows 2021
The University of Liverpool has, for the first time, created a Virtual Visiting Fellowship Programme offered to researchers at select partner universities, and specialising in the area of heritage.
These international, virtual fellowships provide an opportunity for selected candidates to gain collaborative research experience in an international research environment with the aim of publishing a specific piece of research in an international journal or equivalent venue and fostering long-term collaboration.
The fellowships were open to researchers working in the field of heritage and to early career as well as established researchers.
‘Heritage’ in its most fundamental definition includes any aspect of human culture (or anything encompassed by it) which invokes or generates elements of real or imagined pasts in the present. The study of heritage therefore ranges across anthropogenic, environmental, material and non-material, tangible and intangible objects and practices, often in combination.
The range of specialities chosen by our virtual fellows below reflects that wide-ranging definition.
Meet the 2021 fellows and their research
In June 2021, the University of Liverpool hosted an online showcase event, where the visiting fellows could present their work. Below, you can meet the researchers and explore their work.
You can watch the full showcase here, including comments and questions from Professors Lynne Meskell, Richard D. Green Professor of Anthropology in the School of Arts and Sciences, Professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, and curator in the Middle East and Asia sections at the Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania, and Gil Stein, Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology in NELC and at the Oriental Institute, and serves as Director of the Chicago Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation.
Below, you can meet the individual researchers and explore their work through the presentations they gave at the showcase.
Dr Rida Dieb
Dr Rida Dieb is a Syrian planner with a background in architecture. She is currently the dean of the High Institute of Regional Planning at the University of Damascus (Damascus - Syria) and the head of the Regional, Urban, and Structural Planning Department at the Institute. She is also an assistant professor at the School of Architecture and a lecturer at the Faculty of Tourism.
Rida is interested in virtual reality technology and augmented virtual reality and how they can be used at heritage sites in Syria, many of which have suffered damage leading to the deconstruction of large areas, especially in some of the internationally recognised sites.
The fellowship is a great opportunity for her to develop a new approach to the tourism development of heritage sites after either natural or human-made disasters. Her research whilst a visiting fellow is based on the urgency of safeguarding what has survived from Palmyra, Syria, utilising VR technologies.
Dr Nabil Mohareb
Dr Nabil Mohareb is an Egyptian architect and urban design researcher, and gained his PhD in architecture from the University of Liverpool. He is currently the associate professor and director of the Faculty Branch, Faculty of Architecture/Design and Built Environment, Beirut Arab University, Lebanon.
His main research focuses on analysing the patterns of behaviour at different architecture and urban scale levels (micro/macro scales). This research moves gradually to focus on monitoring the movement behaviour of individuals or small-defined groups and the effect of environmental factors on them.
Dr S. Udayakumar
Dr S. Udayakumar, currently working as a post-doctoral research associate in the School of Humanities, National Institute of Advanced Studies (Indian Institute of Science Campus), Bangalore.
His research is focused on ancient Indian heritage and especially archaeometallurgy.
Shreya V Pai
Shreya is an experienced researcher with a demonstrated history of working in the architecture, planning and heritage management industry.
As a University of Liverpool virtual fellow, Shreya is focusing on developing documentation undertaken through fieldwork in 2017 in association with ArCHIAM Centre, University of Liverpool. This initial documentation included preliminary measured drawings of the 11 structures in the vicinity of the Kashi Vishvanatha Temple on the Kaveri River (Chikka Gosai Ghat).
She is developing further research recognizing the neglect, deterioration and destruction of the architectural heritage and living culture (both tangible and intangible) and natural heritage.
Benedicta Gokah
Benedicta Gokah is a PhD student of the University of Ghana being supported by the University and the Gerda Henkel foundation. She is a historical archaeologist interested in forts and castles built during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
The Liverpool Virtual Visiting Fellowship Programme will enable her to publish on, 'Sustaining Ghana’s Vanishing Heritage Sites: Documentation and Conservation Practices of Fort Prinzenstein in Keta, Volta Region' paving way for her career development. She aspires to become a researcher and lecturer to help develop younger students and academics.
Dr Daniel Scarborough
Daniel Scarborough earned his PhD in history from Georgetown University in 2012 with a research focus on the religious and intellectual history of late Imperial Russia. From 2013 to 2015, he taught Russian religious history at the department of comparative religion at Miami University (Oxford Ohio) as a Havighurst post-doctoral fellow. Since 2015, he has been assistant professor of Russian history and religion at Nazarbayev University in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
His current research focuses on sacred geography and Muslim-Christian relations in early 20th century Turkestan.
Dr Alaa N. Hamdon
Dr Alaa N. Hamdon is the director of the Remote Sensing Center at the University of Mosul, and senior lecturer in earth science and RS/GIS.
Alaa has been working on disaster risk management of cultural heritage and urban since he was awarded his PhD in 2012.
He is also a member of the Global Young Academy, ICOMOS and the Young Academy of Scotland.
Alaa's research is about establishing a database for cultural heritage in the Nineveh/ northern Iraq region using modern technique such as RS/GIS based on the ground facts and archive. This work is vital because the cultural heritage of northern Iraq has suffered from severe, detrimental impact through armed and political conflict.