Academic Background

• Since Feb. 2019 Head of the Asylum Documentation Unit at the Higher Administrative Court of Baden-Württemberg  (Verwaltungsgerichtshof BW) - https://verwaltungsgerichtshof-baden-wuerttemberg.justiz-bw.de/pb/,Lde/Startseite/Der+Verwaltungsgerichtshof/Asyldokumentation 
• 2018 Deputy Professor, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt (Main), Social Anthropology of Islam, (April to September 2018)
• 2015 Visiting Professor at Institute d’études de l’islam et des sociétés du monde musulman (IISMM), Paris.
• 2014 Visiting Researcher at Fondation Maison Science de l’Homme (FMSH), Paris.

• 2016 Habilitation at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Habilitation (second monograph): “The Faceless Terrorist. A Cultural Enquiry of Jihad.” (Habilitation exams: April 2016)
• 2010- 2013 Post-doctoral position at Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. Project: “Interdisciplinary approaches to Islamic fundamentalism among young Tajik men.” (March 2010 to February 2012) and “Central Asian intellectuals on Islam: between scholarship, politics and identity.” (March 2012 to April 2013)
• 2010 PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany. Dissertation thesis: “Domesticating youth. The youth bulge in post-civil war Tajikistan.” (June 2010, Summa Cum Laude)

• 2007 Preparation courses of the European Doctoral School of Demography (EDSD) at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany. (September-October)
• 2000–2001 Erasmus/Sokrates year in Paris at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisation Orientales), courses taken in: Arabe littéral, islam et islamologie and Mongole, langue et histoire; and EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales).
• 2001 ASA participant within ASA program: “Research on traditional medical systems among the grassland people and FulBe” (Northwest Cameroon, Mbororo). (Funded by ASA) (July-September)

Fieldwork 

- Germany (2015-2018) (Subject: Salafi Mosques in Heidelberg and Mannheim)
- Iran (2017, 2018) (Subject: Earthquake in Kermanshah 2017, and Bam 2003)
- Tajikistan (2002, 2003, 2006-2007, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015)
(22 months in all) (Subjects: youth and conflict, Islam, migration, environmental pollution (nuclear pollution), memory after the civil war)
- Russia (2010, 2011, 2012, 2014) (4 months in all) (Subject: Migrants from Central Asia and Islam)
- Turkey (2013, 2014) (Subject: Migrants and Islam, Muslim intellectuals of Tajikistan
- Cameroon (2001) (Subject: medicinal plants)
- Uzbekistan (2000) (Subject: excursion about ethnic minorities)
- Mongolia (1998) (Subject: Nomadism)

Language skills

German (native speaker)

French (native speaker)

English (written and spoken, fluent)
Tajik (good)

Persian (basic)

Russian (basic)

Arabic (reading skills)