Rubina Raja is a classical archaeologist educated at University of Copenhagen (Denmark), La Sapienza University (Rome) and University of Oxford (England).^[1] She is professor (chair) of classical archaeology at Aarhus University^[2][3] and centre director of the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet).^[4][5][6] She specialises in the cultural, social and religious archaeology and history of past societies. Research foci include urban development and network studies, architecture and urban planning, the materiality of religion as well as iconography from the Hellenistic to Early Medieval periods.^[7] Her publications include articles, edited volumes and monographs on historiography, ancient portraiture and urban archaeology as well as themes in the intersecting fields between humanities and natural sciences.^[8] Rubina Raja received her DPhil degree from the University of Oxford in 2005 (Lincoln College) with a thesis on urban development and regional identities in the eastern Roman provinces under the supervision of Professors R.R.R. Smith and Margareta Steinby.^[9] Thereafter, she held a post-doctoral position at Hamburg University, Germany, before she in 2007 moved to a second post-doctoral position at Aarhus University, Denmark.^[10] In 2011–2016, she was a member of the Young Academy of Denmark, where she was elected chairwoman in 2013.

Rubina Raja has since 2007 been the principal investigator and director of several research projects, many of them interdisciplinary.^[11] Since 2015, she directs Centre for Urban Network Evolutions based at Aarhus University,^[12] which is the largest research initiative within the humanities in Denmark. The centre has pioneered work on urban development, high definition archaeology and network studies of societies from the late Hellenistic into the Medieval periods geographically covering regions from Northern Europe, across the Mediterranean to the East Coast of Africa.^[13]

Rubina Raja directs two fieldwork projects together with international colleagues. Since 2011 she has directed the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project together with professor Dr. Achim Lichtenberger from Münster University^[14] and since 2017 she directs the Danish-Italian Caesar's Forum Project^[15] in Rome together with Dr. Jan Kindberg Jacobsen (The Danish Institute in Rome) and Dr. Claudio Presecce Parisi (Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Direzione Musei archeologici e storico-artistici, Rome, Italy).^[16]

Rubina Raja is the primary investigator and director of the Palmyra Portrait Project^[17] that compiles a corpus of the funerary portraiture from Palmyra. Since 2012, the project has collected and catalogued more than 4000 pieces, which will be the basis for the research carried out within two new research projects, Archive Archaeology^[18] and Circular Economy and Urban Sustainability in Antiquity. The Case of Palmyra.^[19]

Rubina Raja is a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters^[20] as well as the Academia Europaea.^[21] She is an elected corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute and the Archaeological Institute of America.^[22]

Rubina Raja's research has earned several national and international distinctions within and outside her field, among these the Friedrich Wilhelm von Bessel Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation in 2022^[23] and the Queen Margrethe IIs rome Prize in 2021.^[24] She has also received the silver medal for outstanding research within the humanities from the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters^[25] as well as the Elite Research Prize (EliteForsk)^[26] and the National Research Prize for outstanding research within the humanities and social sciences awarded by Dansk Magisterforening.^[27] She has also received international acclaims from the Max Planck Institute in Germany^[28] and the American Institute for Archaeology.^[29]

Rubina Raja engages actively in outreach initiatives and in communicating her research within the humanities and about the importance of humanities widely to the general public and policy makers in publications,^[30] radio-interviews and programmes,^[31] podcasts,^[32] television^[33] and documentaries,^[34] as well as online lectures.^[35] She has curated several exhibitions, among others Harald Ingholt og Palmyra^[36] and Jerash – et dansk-tysk udgravningsprojekt at the Museum of Ancient Art (Aarhus University),^[37] and The Road to Palmyra^[38] at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.^[39] Rubina Raja also acted as one of the head consultants on the featured exhibition Palmyra – Loss and Remembrance^[40] at the Getty Villa (J. Paul Getty Museum).^[41]

Rubina Raja studied Classical Archaeology, Italian language, Cultural Communication and Journalism at the University of Copenhagen in from 1995 to 1999. She spent the academic year 1997-1998 as an exchange student at the Universitá di Roma, La Sapienza. She continued her studies at the University of Oxford, where she gained her M.St. in Classical Archaeology. In 2005, she received her D.Phil. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Oxford (Lincoln College). Her dissertation was entitled Urban development and regional identity in the eastern Roman provinces, 50 BC – AD 250: Aphrodisias, Ephesos, Athens, Gerasa and was supervised by R.R.R. Smith and Margareta Steinby. It was published as a monograph in 2012. As further education within the fields of research and management organisation Rubina Raja studied for a Diploma of Management (Forvaltningshøjskolen, Copenhagen; VIA University College, Aarhus (2008-2010) and joined an Executive Research Management Course (Copenhagen Business School, 2015). She is committed to furthering professional leadership in the university world as well as dedicated to furthering the careers of female scholars and academics in particular.

• 2021- Editorial board member of the peer-reviewed journal Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania.^[52]
• 2021- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Urban Archaeological Pasts together with Prof. Michael E. Smith and Prof. Søren M. Sindbæk, published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ^[53]
• 2021- Editorial board member of the peer-reviewed journal Journal of Field Archaeology, published by Taylor & Francis.^[54]
• 2021- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Women of the Past together with Associate Professor Nina J. Koefoed, published by Brepols Publishers, Turnhout.^[55]
• 2021- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Archive Archaeology, published by Brepols Publishers, Turnhout.^[56]
• 2020- Scientific board member of the journal Rivista di Studi Pompeiani, Pompei/Rome, Italy.
• 2019- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed journal Journal of Urban Archaeology together with Prof. Dr. Søren M. Sindbæk, published by Brepols, Turnhout.^[57]
• 2019- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Rome Studies: Archaeology, History and Literature together with Dr. Trine Arlund Hass, published by Brepols, Turnhout.^[58]
• 2019- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Studies in Palmyrene Archaeology and History, published by Brepols, Turnhout.^[59]
• 2019- Advisory board member of the peer-reviewed series Ritual in the Ancient Mediterranean, Routledge.
• 2018- Editorial scientific committee member for the journal ARYS (Antigüedad, Religiones y Sociedades).
• 2017- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Mediterranean Studies in Antiquity published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• 2016- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Studies in Classical Archaeology together with Prof. Dr. Achim Lichtenberger, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, published by Brepols, Turnhout.^[60]
• 2016- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Jerash Papers together with Prof. Dr. Achim Lichtenberger, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, published by Brepols, Turnhout.^[61]
• 2015- Editorial board member of the peer-reviewed international journal Religion in the Roman Empire published by Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen.^[62]
• 2015- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Palmyrenske Studier published by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen.^[63]
• 2013- Founder and editor of the peer-reviewed series Contextualizing the Sacred together with Dr. Elizabeth Frood, University of Oxford, England published by Brepols, Turnhout.^[64]

• 2022 Friedrich Wilhelm-Bessel Forschungspreis, Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Germany^[65]
• 2021 Her Majesty Queen Margrethe’s Rome Prize awarded by the Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark.^[66]
• 2019 National Research Prize awarded by the Dansk Magisterforening for outstanding research in the humanities and social sciences.^[67]
• 2018-2019 Appointed Kershaw Lecturer by the Archaeological Institute of America.^[68]
• 2015 Awarded the EliteForsk Prize by the Danish Research Council and Ministry of Higher Education and Science.^[69]
• 2015 Tagea Brandts Award for female researchers.
• 2015 Appointed distinguished lecturer in the Human Sciences, Max Planck Institute, Berlin, Germany.^[70]
• 2014 Silver medal awarded by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen, Denmark for outstanding research in the humanities and social sciences.^[71]

Full list of publications available at Aarhus University, Rubina Raja: Research Outputs.