Chiara Ombretta Tommasi

Chiara Ombretta Tommasi (Rome, 8th February 1973). After graduating from the University of Pisa and at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (1995), she obtained a PhD in Greek and Latin Philology at the University of Pisa (2000). Subsequently she secured a post-doctoral fellowship in Latin Literature at the same university (2001-2005) and was then appointed as assistant professor of Latin Literature (“ricercatore”) in 2006.
After successfully obtaining her qualification in the national ASN 2012 to practice in the disciplinary fields indicated as 10/D3, lingua e letteratura latina; 10/D4, filologia classica e tardoantica; and 11/A4, scienze del libro e del documento e storico-religiose, she is currently associate professor of the History of Religions and Early Christianity at the University of Pisa. In 2017 she also obtained a Qualification aux Fonctions de Professeur (France), section 08, langues et littératures anciennes; in 2018 and 2020 she obtained the qualification as full professor in the national ASN 2016-18 in the disciplinary field 11/A4, scienze del libro e del documento e storico-religiose; and 10/D4, filologia classica e tardoantica.
She has been Invited professor at the Scuola Galileiana in Padua (2018) and at the Sorbonne Université in Paris (2024).
In 2011 she was awarded the “Premio giovani ricercatori dell’Università di Pisa”.
She has been elected to the board of the Società Italiana di Storia delle Religioni (2016-20) and she will serve as Deputy General Secretary of the Europaean Association for the Study of Religions (2020-2022; 2023-25).
She is a member of LEM, Laboratoire sur les Monothéismes, UMR 8584 (CNRS, Paris, France) and has been nominated Fellow of the Academia Europaea in 2019.
She is a member of the editorial board of Studi Classici e Orientali (University of Pisa); she is also part of the scientific committee of “Axolotl. Collana di studi sulle religioni”, published by Mimesis Editore in Milan; "Millennium" (De Gruyter, Berlin); "Roma Sinica" (De Gruyter, Berlin); of the journal "Religion" (Routledge); "Correspondences" (online); "Religeogaphies" (Fondazione Cini, Venice); "Religion in the Roman Empire" (Mohr Siebeck). Together with Andrea Balbo (University of Turin) and Francesco Stella (University of Siena) she directs the series "Documenta Orientalia" (Pacini Editore, Pisa).
She has been involved in many national and international projects, among which the FISR 2019, "SERICA, Sino-European Religious Intercations in Central Asia. Intelligent Networks", awarded with 1.400.000 euros.
In addition to her teaching activity, she has been responsible for setting up an Erasmus partnership with the University of Geneva (2008-13) as well as a partnership involving the University of Pisa, the Scuola Normale Superiore, the University of Paris IV Sorbonne, and the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris (2010-12); she coordinated an academic collaboration between Pisa and St. Andrews (2011-2012), and, together with Luciana G. Soares Santoprete and Helmut Seng, she directed the triennial project “Il lato oscuro della tarda antichità. Marginalità e integrazione delle correnti esoteriche nella spiritualità filosofica dei secoli II-VI”, sponsored by the Centro per l’Eccellenza Europea di Villa Vigoni (2013-15). Together with Domitilla Campanile, in 2016 she organized the international workshop “Trifunzionalità trent’anni dopo: Georges Dumézil”. She also organized the 18th International EASR Conference in Pisa (2021) and the conference "Roma Sinica III" (2022).
Chiara Tommasi has published extensively in English, French and German in major journals and volumes. The findings of her researches have been presented at national and international conferences.