Verena Lepper

Since 2013, I serve as the AGYA Principal Investigator (PI) at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW). In this capacity, I represent AGYA’s interests in dealings with the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and other cooperation partners in Germany and the Arab world. Together with the Steering Committee, I develop the AGYA network rollout strategy.

Since November 2025, I am the head of the Getty Villa at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA. My research focuses on Egyptian and Oriental papyri, literature, religion and language as well as the history of art, culture and science. I have published more than 20 books and numerous articles on these topics. I received my academic training in Egyptology and Oriental Studies at Bonn, Tübingen, Cologne, Oxford and Harvard University. For 17 years, I served as curator of the Egyptian and Oriental Papyri at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, Berlin (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin). I led major international exhibitions and research projects in Germany and abroad, including in Berlin, Doha, Abu Dhabi, and at Harvard University.

From 2006 to 2011, I was member of the German Young Academy, die Junge Akademie. Here, I developed together with fellow member Kirill Dmitriev the idea for a bilateral Arab-German Young Academy and became in 2013 one of its founding members. I served as AGYA President from 2013-2015, and as German Co-President from 2015-2016.

I have been a Young Leader of the Atlantik-Brücke since 2009, becoming its member in 2018. In 2011, I have been awarded as one of the “100 Women of Tomorrow” by the initiative “Germany - Land of Ideas” of the Federal German Government and the Federation of German Industry. In recognition of my academic and curatorial achievements in the field of Egyptology, I received the “2013 Young Scientist” award by the World Economic Forum.