People

The research project brings together cutting-edge scholarship in the humanities and natural sciences.
Principal Investigator: Tuomas Heikkilä, Professor of Church History, University of Helsinki

Tuomas Heikkilä, PhD, MAE, is a medievalist, working as Professor of Church History at the Faculty of Theology (University of Helsinki). With a diverse academic background that includes roles as Director of the Finnish Research Institute in Rome and visiting positions abroad, Heikkilä emphasises multidisciplinary collaboration across fields such as computer science and evolutionary biology. His expertise encompasses mediaeval written culture, manuscript studies, and monastic history, and he has led major research projects on the development of written culture in Finland and innovative methods in textual criticism. Heikkilä is one of the four Principal Investigators of ERC SyG project CODICUM, the sister project of CHARM.

Postdoc Tuuli Kasso

Tuuli Kasso is a heritage scientist working with an interdisciplinary approach to study history through the analysis of artefacts and their materials. The main focus of her research is ancient polychromy and pigments, in addition to biocodicological approaches to medieval parchment. She holds e.g. a MSc in Archaeological Science from the University of Oxford and has a PhD in Science from the University of Copenhagen. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Church History at the University of Helsinki in CHARM – for the entire duration of the project.