Rubina Raja is Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark and Director of the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions and the Palmyra Portrait Project. She has published extensively on culture and societies in the Eastern Roman Empire. Her monographs include Pearl of the Desert: A History of Palmyra (2022), Urban Development and Regional Identity in the Eastern Roman Provinces, 50 BC--AD 250: Aphrodisias, Athens, Ephesos, Gerasa (2012), and The Ingholt Archive (2023), published in four volumes and co-authored with Olympia Bobou, Amy Miranda, and Jean-Baptiste Yon.