Grigor Boykov, Ph.D. in Ottoman history (2013, Bilkent University) previously taught at the University of Sofia, Central European University, and was a researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His research attempts to merge well-established approaches in history writing with the constantly evolving tools and methods in Digital Humanities, such as spatial and network analysis. His publications focus on diverse but profoundly interwoven themes like architectural patronage in the Ottoman Balkans; prosopography of the early Islamic elites in South-Eastern Europe; history of urban morphology in the Balkans under the Ottoman rule; historical population geography of the Eastern Balkans; monastic and non-Sunni Islamic networks vis-à-vis the Sunnitizing and centralizing empire-building processes in the Ottoman state.