Zuleika Murat is Associate Professor of History of Medieval Art at the Department of Cultural Heritage (dBC).

She completed her MA in History of Art (2007) and her PhD in Study, Conservation and Enhancement of the Cultural Heritage (2013). She has been Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Warwick (2013-2014) and at the University of Padua (2016-2018), where she has also led as Principal Investigator a STARS two-year multidisciplinary project (2018-2020). Her main research interests concern the visual, material and devotional culture of Medieval Europe. In 2020 Zuleika obtained an ERC Starting Grant for her project SenSArt (2021-2026), which is aimed at examining quantitatively and qualitatively the perceptual schemes that orientated the reception of sacred art in medieval Europe. By challenging the current visiocentric paradigm and assimilating anthropological and sociological notions on the cultural values of sensation, SenSArt will establish sacred art as a primary actor capable of exerting (through sensorial stimulation or deprivation) a social agency on its audience. By comparing different social groups on a local, regional and supranational scale in 12th-15th century Europe, the researchers involved in the project will be able to map the diverse patterns of experience lived by individuals and groups on a European scale.