Dr Alison Ohta is the director of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. She completed her doctoral thesis at SOAS, University of London, on bindings of the Mamluk period (1250–1516). She has lectured and published widely on the subject. Her forthcoming article in a volume of essays in honor of Professor Doris Behrens-Abouseif [...]

Qaisra has a degree in Law from Magdalene College, Cambridge University and an MPhil in Oriental Studies also from Cambridge University. After working for many years in financial consulting, she left to pursue the arts, acquiring an MA in Islamic Art and Architecture from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She [...]