Vincent Lemire has stepped down as director of the French Research Center in Jerusalem. A historian specializing in Jerusalem, co-author of Jerusalem : History of a Global City (2022), and author of Au pied du mur : vie et mort du quartier maghrébin de Jérusalem 1187-1967 (2022), he is resuming his position as professor at Gustave-Eiffel University in Marne-la-Vallée, France.

François-Xavier Fauvelle is the center’s director since September 1. Professor at the Collège de France, Paris, France, and former visiting professor at Princeton University, USA, he is an archaeologist and medieval historian, specializing in the history of Africa and relations between Africa and the Islamicate world in the Middle Ages. He is the author of over a hundred academic articles and some twenty books, including The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages (edition in English 2018, Princeton UP).