Dr Veronika Poier is Fellow in the History of Islamic Art and Material Culture at the Centre. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on knowledge exchange among artistic and scientific communities, with a particular interest in the actors and social groups who preserve and spread artistic and scientific knowledge in times of concurrent warfare.

In the past, this topical concern has led Dr Poier to the Arab States Unit of UNESCO, where she worked on capacity building and the preservation of skills in the context of the reconstruction of heritage sites in Syria and Iraq. Prior to this, she curated an exhibition in the Islamic Art Museum of the Pergamon Museum, for which she received a grant by the European Union. She also received the Bert and Sally de Vries Fellowship of the American Council for Overseas Research (ACOR) in Jordan for her fieldwork on displaced Syrian craftsmen in Mafraq. 

Currently Dr Poier shares her expertise in the preservation of heritage as the co-editor of the book Ukrainian Cultural Heritage in Times of War (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). Veronika furthermore pursues her book project on the transregional ties of craftsmen connecting Anatolia and Iran through the patronage of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed (r. 1413–1421). 

Dr Poier holds a PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University and has previously taught Art History at Harvard, Political Humanities at Sciences Po and Islamic Art at Vienna University.