Dr Sultonbek Aksakolov is a history faculty member at the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) at the University of Central Asia (UCA). Previously he had served as the Academic Lead and as the Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at the UCA. He teaches courses on history, geography, religion, and environmental and economic changes in Central Asia. As a lead researcher at SAS, he had successfully attracted fund from World Bank grant to complete research project on Creation of Repository for historical, and natural sites in Tajikistan, as well as organised joint research seminars on cultural heritage and development, which were funded by The Open Society Assistance Foundation (OSIAF) in Tajikistan.
In the past he has worked as a research assistant Silk Road Studies program at Uppsala University in Sweden; and as the research fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies (London, UK). From October 2022 to March 2023, he was also a visiting fellow at the Oxford Centre for Global History and the Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Centre at the University of Oxford, UK. In June 2023 he was a visiting professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), and the Institut d'études de l'Islam et des sociétés du monde musulman (IISMM) EHESS+EPHE/IISMM, in Paris, France.
Sultonbek received his MPhil in Modern Societies and Global Transformations from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2002 and completed his PhD in History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London, in 2014. He has a BA degree in Tajik Philology from Khorog State University, and a certificate of completing from the Graduate Program in Islamic Studies and Humanities at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, UK.
Dr Aksakolov had also worked as a consultant, and translator for several international organisations, and as an examiner for International Baccalaureate, and Chevening UK Government’s global scholarship program.
Sultonbek has published articles, book chapters, and reports on the history of religion, education, mobility, and development issues in Central Asia.
His current research focuses on social and intellectual history, heritage, and tourism in Central Asia.
