Visiting Scholars
Mellon Faculty Fellow in Medieval Studies (2025–26)
John Zaleski, Ph.D.
Our 2025–26 Mellon Fellow is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. Professor Zaleski received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. During his time at the institute, he will be working on a book manuscript. His research shows how Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the medieval Islamic world debated the possibility of universal salvation. In so doing, this research reveals an interreligious conversation that has received little scholarly attention, even amid a surge of recent interest in early Christian universalism. This conversation centered on two questions: Is God’s mercy universal, and will punishment in hell last forever? Such questions yielded no consensus. Yet Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the medieval Islamic world responded to and developed each other’s views and so transformed longstanding beliefs about the afterlife and the justice and mercy of God. N.B.: He will be in residence from January to December 2026.
Email jzaleski@nd.edu
Mellon Faculty Fellow in Medieval Studies (2026–27)
Meghan Woolley, Ph.D.
Our 2026–27 Mellon Fellow is Assistant Professor of History at the Idaho State University. Professor Woolley received her Ph.D. from Duke University. During her time at the institute, she will be working on her book manuscript, The Heart of Law: Friendship and Emotions in the Early Common Law, which analyzes how a culture valuing emotional connection shaped the development and practice of the English common law in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It uses legal records, treatises, and narrative texts to explore how emotions such as love, anger, and sadness served as essential ways to form lasting agreements, manipulate social influence, and frame the moral meaning of disputes.
Email mwoolle2@nd.edu
Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Byzantine Studies Postdoctoral Fellow
Dimitra Sikalidou, Ph.D.
Our 2026–27 Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Byzantine Studies Fellow received her Ph.D. from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During her time at the institute, she will will investigate how religious life in the fortified settlement of Geraki (Laconia, Greece) evolved between 1400 and 1702 under conditions of political instability. She will analyze the long-term use, modification, and reconfiguration of churches and sacred spaces, drawing on architectural, pictorial, and epigraphic evidence. Using a “biography of monuments” approach and spatial analysis, she will examine how religious practices adapted and persisted under Venetian and Ottoman control. By reconstructing the transformation of Geraki’s religious landscape, she aims to highlight forms of lived religion often overlooked in art-historical and archaeological scholarship.
Email dsikalid@nd.edu
Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow
Tzvi Schoenberg, Ph.D.
The Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowships program is a University-wide initiative to support highly motivated and accomplished researchers who are committed to Notre Dame’s mission to be a powerful force for good in the world.
These prestigious fellowships are designed to attract exceptional early-stage scholars seeking to advance their careers in an interdisciplinary academic environment at a leading global Catholic research university. The fellows are appointed for two years.
Our 2025–27 Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow in Medieval Studies is Tzvi Schoenberg. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. During his stay at the University of Notre Dame, he will research Medieval Jewish Kabbalah and theology, examining analogical structures in 13th–4th century Kabbalah, focusing on linguistic and ontological models.
He will give a talk on his work in the spring, so stay tuned for more information and plan to join us.
Email tschoenb@nd.edu
Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow
Ashley Castelino, D.Phil.
Dr. Castelino holds a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. He works closely with the Institute’s staff, especially its director of undergraduate studies and engagement, in the Institute’s outreach and engagement efforts directed at local schools as well as friends, alumni, and undergraduate majors and minors. Dr. Castelino's research focuses on dogs and other animals in medieval literature (within a medical humanities framework). He will also be working on a new project on individual and collective responses to food in the Old Norse sagas.
Email acasteli@nd.edu
Research Affiliates
Anna Katharina Rudolph, Ph.D.
Dr. Rudolph is a research affiliate in medieval studies. As Managing Director of the Global Catholic Research Initiative, she supports the GCRI and conducts her research on pre-modern women’s monasticism, including work toward a monograph and a collaborative project on nuns and archives.
Email arudolp3@nd.edu
Appointed Research Visitors
The Medieval Institute attracts scholars from around the world who wish to visit and use the Institute’s extensive library collection for their research.
Pierre Courtain, Ph.D.
Dr. Courtain received his Ph.D. from the Université catholique de Louvain and the Université de Nantes and currently teaches at the Institut Notre-Dame in Fleurus. He will be in residence at the institute during the 2026–27 year. During his time here, Dr. Courtain will study the works of Latin Dominican missionaries from the 13th century to shed light on their use of Arabic sources. This work will allow a much deeper understanding of the medieval Latin Christian knowledge of Islam as these writers were among the first to learn Arabic in order to read such texts. This phenomenon allowed them to acquire unprecedented information on Islam both as a religion and a civilisation which had repercussion in Europen for centuries. His work is funded by the Belgian American Educational Foundation.
Email pcourtai@nd.edu