BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Elaheh Kheirandish is a historian of science with a PhD from Harvard University’s Department of the History of Science. She has served as a lecturer at various departments at Harvard University, curated exhibits at Harvard and Brown Universities, and offered courses and workshops internationally.

Her work focuses on the history of mathematical and physical sciences such as optics and mechanics, and her projects range from the Arabic and Persian scientific traditions, to the applications of advancing technologies to historical studies. She has published books, starting with a two-volume dissertation, as well as several articles, and major chapters in edited volumes.

Her productions include short documentary films, historical plays, interactive maps, and other multimedia work. Among her most recent activities are short courses offered at International Summer Schools at Harvard University and Istanbul’s Museum of History of Science and Technology in Islam.

Her affiliations include fellowship awards the National Science Foundation, The Dibner Institute of the History of Science and Technology, and more recently, the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University’s Department of History of Art and Architecture, resulting in major publications titled “Light and Dark: The ‘Checkered History’ of Early Optics,” God Is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth: Light in Islamic Art and Culture, Yale, 2015; “An Early Tradition in Practical Geometry: The ‘Telling Lines’ of Unique Arabic and Persian Sources”, Muqarnas Supplement, 2017, and “Optics and Perspective In and Beyond the Islamic Middle Ages: A Study of Transmission through Multidisciplinary Sources in Arabic and Persian”, Renaissance Cultures of Optics and Practices of Perspective, Brepols 2019. Her most recent book is a monograph titled ‘Baghdad and Isfahan: A Dialogue of Two Cities in an Age of Science (ca. 750-1750), published in May 2021.

Her most recent affiliation is with the Department of the Classics at Harvard University, currently working on the publication of a book on the Arabic and Persian tradition of ancient Alexandrian mechanics, including editions, translations, historical commentaries and indices, expected to be published by 2023. She has served as an editorial board member at academic publications such as Early Science and Medicine, and continues to act as the founding director of ecademics.org Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to the application of digital technology to historical studies with a view of generating knowledge not conceivable without the use of such technology, and of transmitting knowledge about the transmission of knowledge at large.