Past Member Rubina Raja Receives Carlsberg Foundation’s Research Prize

Rubina Raja, Member (2019) in the School of Historical Studies, has received one of the Carlsberg Foundation’s Research Prizes for 2024. The prizes, presented by Her Majesty The Queen of Denmark and the Danish Minister for Education and Research, recognize those who "have dedicated themselves to the service of science to the benefit of us all."

Raja was honored for her work on urban societies of the past and her archaeological excavations, which have pushed "the international archaeological and historical research agenda." Much of her work has been conducted at the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria; she studied a vast corpus of Roman-period portraits discovered there. Raja's time at IAS was dedicated to researching these works of art, which provide insight into the structure of religious life in the city during the first three centuries C.E. The foundation praised Raja for her work at Palmyra, which "has ensured a holistic understanding of a site which is now largely lost due to the civil war in Syria."

Raja currently serves as Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at Aarhus University and as Centre Director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Urban Network Evolutions.

The Carlsberg Foundation’s Research Prizes are awarded each year to researchers who have made a crucial contribution to basic research: one in the field of natural sciences and one in the field of either humanities or social sciences. Each prize is awarded on the recommendation of a Prize Committee of Danish and international researchers. This year, a Research Prize was also awarded to biomedical researcher Jesper Qualmann Svejstrup of Copenhagen University. 

Read the full citation on the Carlsberg Foundation website.