Biography
Mehran Nickbakht replaced Prof. Ortwin Knorr during his sabbatical in 2007-2008.
Dr. Nickbakht is an ancient historian with strong training in classical philology. He is especially interested in Roman history, Latin epigraphy, and Latin literature, in particular historiography, Augustan poetry, and epistolography.
He studied at the universities of Cologne and Göttingen in Germany, but also spent one year at the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium) and three years at the University of California, Berkeley.
While working at the University of Bern in Switzerland, Mehran Nickbakht received his Ph.D. from Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf (Germany) with a study on Tacitus and the SC de Cn. Pisone patre: Tacitus’ Working Methods in the Annals (in German). He has published several scholarly articles, e.g., on Vergil's Aeneid, Tacitus' Annals, Ovid's Ars Amatoria, and Augustus' adoption of Tiberius. Currently, he is working on Pliny's Epistles.
Mehran Nickbakht previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Bern (Switzerland). He spent 2006-2007 doing research at the Swiss Institute in Rome. Since then, he has taught at the Universities of Gießen and Düsseldorf. Currently, he is a Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Düsseldorf.