Hossein Nakhaei is an author, architect, and architectural historian specializing in medieval Persian art and architecture, with a focus on displaced material culture. His research sits at the intersection of architectural history, environmental humanities, technical art history, and digital humanities. It brings together an interdisciplinary approach and emerging technologies to expand the understanding of isolated museum objects to the broader scales of architecture and their natural environments.
Nakhaei is currently completing his PhD at the department of History of Art and Architecture as the 2025 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellow. His dissertation, Luminous Past, Fragmented Present: Persian Luster Tiles from Sacred Architecture to Museum Galleries, interrogates narratives forged by Western art markets, museums, and scholarship, and adopts a reparative approach that re-situates luster tiles within the spatial, cultural, and ecological contexts in which they were made and experienced.
Nakhaei is the author of The Great Mosque of Varamin: The Process of Formation and Evolution (2019, in Persian), which received the 12th Farabi International Award in the Humanities and Islamic Studies in 2021. He also served as lead contributor for The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine, a digital project dedicated to one of the key historic sites once extensively adorned with luster tiles. In November 2025, he was a scholar-in-residence at the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design.
- Ph.D., History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, in progress
- M.A., University of Pittsburgh, History of Art and Architecture, 2023
- M.A., Architectural Studies, Shahid Beheshti University, 2015
- B.Arch., University of Tehran, 2013
Education & Training
- Graduate Student Presentation Award, Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, 2025
- Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship, American Council for Learned Societies, 2025
- Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art (Postponed to 2026)
- Marstine Fellowship for Research and Public Engagement, University of Pittsburgh, 2025
- David Wilkins Graduate Student Resource Fund, University of Pittsburgh, 2025
- Arts & Sciences Summer Research Grant, University of Pittsburgh, 2025
- Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2024
- Dietrich Summer Research Grant, University of Pittsburgh, 2024
- Early Modern Worlds Biennial Graduate Essay Prize, University of Pittsburgh, 2023
- Arts & Sciences Summer Research Grant, University of Pittsburgh, 2023
- Dietrich Summer Research Grant, University of Pittsburgh, 2022
- Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2021
- The 12th Farabi International Award on the Humanities and Islamic Studies, 2021
Co-authored with Keelan Overton. “From Varamin to Honolulu: The Displacement, Commodification, and Aestheticization of the Emamzadeh Yahya’s Luster Mihrab, 1863–2025.” Essay in The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine, directed and edited by Keelan Overton. 33 Arches production, November 15, 2025. Host: Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.
Co-authored with Fuchsia Hart. “Scattered Tiles, Defaced Birds: The Life of Lustre Tiles in a Contested Site.” In The Complex of ‘Abd Al-Samad in Natanz Context and Decoration, edited by Anaïs Leone, Richard Piran McClary, and Yves Porter. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2025. (Forthcoming)
Co-authored with Keelan Overton. “Chronological Overview of the Emamzadeh Yahya Complex, ca. 1200–2024.” Essay in The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine, directed and edited by Keelan Overton, 33 Arches production, January 15, 2025. Host: Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.
Co-authored with Keelan Overton. “Sites with Persian Luster Tiles, ca. 1200–1350.” Essay in The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine, directed and edited by Keelan Overton, 33 Arches production, January 15, 2025. Host: Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.
Co-authored with Keelan Overton. “The Emamzadeh Yahya Through the Eyes of ʿAliqoli Mirza Eʿtezad al-Saltaneh: Notes from a Qajar Court Visit to Varamin in 1279/1863 and a Biography of Emamzadeh Yahya dated 1294/1877.” Interactive feature in The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine, directed and edited by Keelan Overton, 33 Arches production, January 15, 2025. Host: Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.
Masjed-e jāmeʿ-e Warāmīn: Bāzshenāsī-ye ravand-e sheklgīrī va seyr-e taḥavvol (The Great Mosque of Varamin: The Process of Formation and Evolution.) Foreword by Kambiz Haji-Qassemi & Haeedeh Laleh. Tehran: Shahid Beheshti University & Rowzaneh, 2019.
Selected Presentations
"Every Piece You See is a Fragment: Persian Luster Tiles from Architectural Elements to Museum Objects.” University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 21 November 2025.
“Ecology of Cobalt Blue Pigment in Medieval Persia.” The 78th Society of Architectural Historians Annual International Conference, Atlanta, 30 April-4 May 2025.
Co-discussant with Nancy Um, “AI and Islamic Art History.” Historians of Islamic Art Association Biennial Symposium, Boston College and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 3-5 April 2025.
Co-presented with Alison Langmead and Kale Doyen, “Teaching Art History with AI.” Computer Vision and Art History Today, Barnes Foundation, 14-15 June 2024.
"Persian Pavilion and British Petroleum: Art and Oil in the Last Concession of Antoine Kitabgi Khan.” Association of Iranian Studies: First Online Symposium, 21-22 November 2023.
Co-presented with Fuchsia Hart. “Defaced birds: Iconoclasm and identifying luster tiles from the shrine complex at Natanz.” Le complexe de ‘Abd al-Samad à Natanz: contextes et décors. MMSH, Aix-en-Provence, France, March 30, 2023
“Paradise Gate on the Qibla Wall: Recontextualizing Luster Tiles of Ali b. Ja’far Shrine in Qom.” Cambridge Visual Culture: Medieval Ceramics from Iran: an online symposium, November 2022.
“Recognizing the Original Form of the Great Mosque of Varamin,” Higher Education Center for Cultural Heritage, Tehran, May 2015
