Kianoosh Rezania holds a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Sharif University of Technology (Tehran 1998), a M.A. in Iranian Studies from the University of Tehran (2002) and a Ph.D. in Old Iranian Studies from the Georg-August University Göttingen (2008).

Until 2003, he worked as a software-developer in Tehran. From 2004 to 2006, he was a member of the DFG Research Training Group “Images of Gods – Images of God – Worldviews: Polytheism and Monotheism in the Ancient World” (“Götterbilder – Gottesbilder – Weltbilder: Polytheismus und Monotheismus in der Welt der Antike”) at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and began his Ph.D. project on the Zoroastrian conception of time, funded by the DAAD. In 2008, he earned his Ph.D. in Ancient Iranian Studies in Göttingen with a dissertation on the Zoroastrian image of time.

He subsequently remained at the Göttingen Research Training Group as a fellow, where he conducted research on the Mazdakites as members of a religious movement during the Sasanian period. From 2011 he was a research associate (“Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter”) in the Iranian Studies Department of the G.-A. University of Göttingen and started at the same time his DFG-funded habilitation project on the conception of space in the early Zoroastrianism. 

From 2014 to 2016, Rezania was a visiting scholar at the Käte Hamburger College “Dynamics of Religious History between Asia and Europe” at the Ruhr University Bochum. In September 2016, he was appointed professor of the History of West Asian Religions at the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at RUB.

In addition to other projects, he has also been serving as Principal Investigator at the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1475 “Metaphors of Religion” since 2022 and leads the integrated Graduate School of Metaphor and Religion (GSMR).

Kianoosh Rezania specialized in Old Iranian Studies, especially Zoroastrianism, but he is also interested in Indian Studies, Iranian religions, the history of religions and old Iranian languages. 

Education

• Habilitation, Old Iranian Studies, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany, 2016
• Ph.D., Old Iranian Studies, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany, 2008
• M.A., Old Iranian Culture and Languages, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, 2002
• M.Sc., Computer Science, Sharif University of Technology, 1998
• B.Sc., Computer Science, Sharif University of Technology, 1996