Team members

Dr Dagmar Wujastyk

Department of History and Classics, and Religious Studies, University of Alberta, Associate Professor

University of ViennaDepartment of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Principal Investigator, ERC starting grant project Ayuryog, 2015-2020

Dagmar Wujastyk is an indologist specialized in the history and literature of classical Indian medicine (Ayurveda), iatrochemistry (rasaśāstra), and yoga and South Asian history. Her publications include Modern and Global Ayurveda - Pluralism and Paradigms (SUNY Press) and Well-mannered medicine. Medical Ethics and Etiquette in the Sanskrit Medical Classics (OUP NY).

Dr Suzanne Newcombe

Inform, based in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London, Post-Doc

Suzanne Newcombe researches yoga and ayurveda from a sociological and social historical perspective. Her previous research has focused on the popularisation of yoga and ayurvedic medicine in Britain and she has published chapters in several edited books on this subject, as well as articles in the Journal of Contemporary ReligionReligion Compass and Asian Medicine.

Dr Jason Birch

University of Vienna, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Post-Doc 06/2015 -- 09/2015

SOAS, South Asia department, 09/2015 -- 09/2020

Jason Birch received a doctorate in Oriental Studies (Sanskrit) from the University of Oxford in 2013. His area of research is the medieval yoga traditions of India, in particular, those called Haṭha and Rājayoga.

Jason joined the project in June 2015 to research the influence of āyurvedic theory and praxis on medieval yoga texts.  In September 2015, he became part of the Haṭhayoga project at SOAS, London University.

Dr Christèle Barois

University of ViennaDepartment of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Post-Doc

Christèle Barois is an indologist specialized in ancient and medieval Hinduism through Purāṇic literature and South Indian Śaiva Tantras. Her recent work includes a study of the final section of the Śivapurāṇa, the Vāyavīyasaṃhitā (60 chapters, more than 4,500 verses), which was composed in South India in the 11th century and covers a wide range of topics (cosmogony, mythology, Śaiva doctrine and ritual, śaivayoga).

University of Alberta, Department of History and Classics, Post-Doc

Patricia Sauthoff is an Indologist who specializes in medieval Śaiva Tantra from socio-historical perspective. Her PhD focused on protective rites in the Netra Tantra, and explored the nature of mantra, maṇḍala, and deity visualization in rites to alleviate disease and bestow immortality. 

Patricia joined the project in December 2018 to research the relationships between rasaśāstra and early yoga. She holds a PhD from SOAS in South Asian Languages and Literatures, MAs from SOAS in History and St. John's College in Eastern Classics and BAs in Religious Studies and English from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has taught courses on yoga, theory, Sanskrit, and religion at Nalanda University in Bihar, India and the College of Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

Collaborations

Michael took over the position of AyurYog Project Finance Manager from Andrea Stowers in July 2016.

Image courtesy of The Haṭha Yoga Project

The Haṭha Yoga Project is a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council and based at SOAS, University

Jacqueline Hargreaves, BE (Hons), E-RYT, is collaborating with the AyurYog Project to construct a web-based visual and textual timeline for premodern Ayurveda and Yoga.

© Ayuryog 2015 - University of Vienna, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2.1 & Hof 2.7 (Campus), 1090 Wien