Yusuf Ünal (Ph.D., Emory University) is a historian of early modern Safavid Iran and Ottoman Empire. His research centers on the religious transformation in the early modern Middle East, with a specific emphasis on Sunni-Shi'i polemical encounters, confessional mobility and radicalization, religious refugees and exiles, and conversion narratives. More specifically, his research pivots on the transformative impact of the Safavid Revolution on the religiopolitical landscape in Iran and across the central Islamic lands. 

His scholarly contributions have been published by the Indiana and Edinburgh University presses and translated into languages such as Russian, Turkish, and Arabic. Additionally, his work has been featured in reports from institutions like the American Foreign Policy Council, Hudson Institute, and Brookings Institution.

As a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Yusuf is contributing to a research project led by Professor Christian Lange that delves into the material and sensory history of Islam. He is set to explore various facets of the cultural history of the senses in early modern and modern Iran. He is also co-editing the Handbook of Islamic Sensory History, Vol. III, focusing on the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (c. 1500-1900).

Before joining his current position, Yusuf served as an associate research scholar at the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization at Yale Law School.