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You are here Courses > Summer School for Ancient Trans-Himalayan Languages (SSATH) > Instructor Profiles

Joanna Bialek (PhD in Tibetology, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany; Postdoc at Trinity College Dublin):

Joanna Bialek, Ph.D. (2016) is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the project ‘Tibetan Obsolete Mortuary practices and afterlife Beliefs’ (TOMB) at Trinity College Dublin. She is working at the crossroads of historical linguistics and religious studies. She has published Compounds and Compounding in Old Tibetan and A Textbook in Classical Tibetan, as well as articles on Old Tibetan, history of the Tibetan Empire, Dunhuang manuscripts, and funerary practices on the Tibetan Plateau.

https://tcd.academia.edu/JoannaBialek
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8542-4272

Nathan Hill (PhD in Tibetology, Harvard University; Sam Lam Professor in Chinese Studies, Trinity College Dublin):

Professor Hill researches Tibeto-Burman/Sino-Tibetan historical linguistics. He has published on Old Tibetan descriptive linguistics, Tibetan corpus linguistics, Tibeto-Burman reconstruction and comparative linguistics, the history of Chinese, and the typology of evidential systems. He has led research projects funded by the European Research Council, the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the British Academy.

His books include The Historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese (2019, Cambridge), A Lexicon of Tibetan Verb Stems as Reported by the Grammatical Tradition (2010, Bavarian Academy of Sciences), and Old Tibetan Inscriptions, co-authored with Kazushi Iwao (2009, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies). His edited books include Evidential Systems of Tibetan Languages, with Lauren Gawne (2017, De Gruyter Mouton).

https://tcd.academia.edu/NathanWHill

Kazue Iwasa (PhD in Literature, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies; Associate Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Department of Chinese Studies, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies):

https://researchmap.jp/getty/?lang=english

Yue Ji (PhD candidate, Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna):

Yue Ji is a PhD candidate and DOC Fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the University of Vienna. His doctoral project, The Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā in Tangut Translation, investigates both the philological and linguistic aspects of Tangut by comparative studies on the multilingual parallel texts in Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Chinese. In addition to Tangut, his research interests also include the linguistics and philology of Ancient Chinese and Indo-European languages in the Eastern Silk Road.

ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/persons/yue-ji
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2298-7745
https://univie.academia.edu/YueJi

Liwen Liu (PhD in Religious Studies, University of Toronto; joint Postdoc at Cambridge University and SOAS):

Liwen Liu received her PhD in the Study of Religion from the University of Toronto and is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Newar Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her research focuses on the diachronic development of classical Newar, and she is working on creating a Newar language corpus by digitizing manuscripts to support linguistic, literary, and religious studies. Her broader interests include Newar studies, ritual studies, Sanskrit intellectual history, and Tantric traditions.

https://utoronto.academia.edu/LiwenLiu

Josiah Medin (PhD candidate, Centre for Asian Studies, Trinity College Dublin):

Josiah Medin is a PhD candidate in the Trinity Centre for Asian studies. His project, entitled A Descriptive Grammar of the Old Meitei Language as Attested in the Numit Kappa and the Cheitharol Kumpapa, concerns the description of the linguistic features of the oldest attested stage of the Meitei language of Manipur, Northeast India, and of the changes that the language underwent in its development into its modern form. His research combines descriptive linguistics, historical phonology, morphology, syntax, palaeography, epigraphy, and textual criticism to date and describe the contents of manuscripts and inscriptions from pre-colonial Manipur.

https://tcd.academia.edu/JosiahMedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiah-medin-9216b8264/

Jinqi Ying (PhD candidate, Centre for Asian Studies, Trinity College Dublin):

Jinqi is a PhD candidate in TCAS with the project Reconstructing the Initials of Old Chinese through the Philology of Excavated Documents. Her research focuses on the phonological reconstruction of Old Chinese, specifically examining the consonant clusters and phonetic components used in ancient Chinese characters. Her work bridges the gap between phonologists and philologists by utilising newly excavated texts to resolve long-standing controversies in the pronunciation of Old Chinese. Her expertise includes Chinese philology and palaeography, with a particular interest in the application of rigorous methodological practices to ancient linguistic data.

Facts and Figures

Location:

Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Start Date:

Monday, June 16, 2025

Duration:

June 16th-28th

Level:

Open to all

Areas of Interest:

Historical Linguistics, Descriptive Linguistics, Linguistic Anthropology, Palaeography, Religious Studies, Buddhist Studies, (Asian) History, Ancient Literature

Contact:

ssathtcd@gmail.com