Christianity in Syria: Glorious Past, Uncertain Future.  Emma Loosely is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.

After graduating from a PhD in Late Antique Syria at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), she spent three years living and working as an archaeologist, fund-raiser, secretary and potato-peeler for the Community of Al-Khalil at Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi in Syria. The Community is dedicated to hospitality and Christian-Islamic dialogue.  She spent the summers directing an archaeological excavation for the Community at their other monastery, Deir Mar Elian in Qaryatayn.

She also worked for the Abu Dhabi Ministry of Information as an archaeologist studying the artefacts found at a sixth-century monastery on the island of Sir Bani Yas.

She has taught Oriental Christian and Islamic Art at the University of Manchester, where she was appointed Senior Lecturer.  Since 2012, she  has been working on a five-year European Research Council funded project entitled Architecture and Asceticism: Cultural Interaction between Syria and Georgia in Late Antiquity.