Ehsan Behbahani-Nia

Curriculum Vitae

Education
B.Arch. Azad University, 2016
Dual M.A. École d’Architecture de Strasbourg (ENSAS) and Université de Strasbourg, 2018
M.A. École Pratique des Hautes Études, 2020

Biography
Ehsan Behbahani-Nia joined the Department of Art History of UW–Madison in 2020. He holds a bachelor’s in architecture from the University of Azad, Tehran, and three master’s degrees related to ancient architecture and archaeology from Strasbourg and Paris, France. His research focuses on ancient building technology, stone-cutting and craftsmanship in the Classical World, as well as in architectural exchanges between Greco-Roman world and Persians, from Archaic through Roman periods. He is most impassioned about using architecture as a medium to better understand intercultural relations and connections across ancient Aegean, Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds.

Starting from August 2020, he is working with Prof. Nick Cahill as a Project Assistant on the publications and materials of Sardis Expedition. Ehsan is also a research associate of Université Bordeaux–Montaigne and affiliated with the Getty Foundation’s Seminar on Connecting Art Histories–Beyond the Northern Aegean. In the field, he works with the Harvard–Cornell excavation team at Sardis, the Chicago excavation team at Isthmia in Greece, and recently the French-Turkish mission at Labraunda. Ehsan is also a former member of the French-Iranian mission of Pasargadae in Iran, following archaeological missions throughout the Mediterranean from Rome, Thasos, Delos, Oncehstos and Caričin Grad (Serbia) to several sites in France (Mandeure, Arles, Argentomagus, etc.).

Award(s)
2021 Douglas Schewe Award for Best Graduate Student Paper
“Carian Stonemasons in Pasargadae?”

Primary Advisor(s)
Nicholas D. Cahill