Giorgio Buccellati is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and the Department of History at UCLA. He was the founding director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. He founded IIMAS – The International Institute for Mesopotamian Area Studies, of which he is currently the Director. He has also been active as a publisher, having founded Undena Publications, of which he is currently the General Editor. – For full details see the Personal website.
He has published extensively in the fields of Akkadian philology, linguistics and literature; cuneiform graphemics; history of Mesopotamian political institutions and religion; archaeology of Syria; digital systems applied to Mesopotamia. He has participated and directed archaeological projects in Iraq, Turkey, the Caucasus and especially Syria (Terqa, Urkesh).