Matteo Al Kalak (PhD in History 2009, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) is Professor of the History of Christianity and the Churches at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He teaches modern history and the history of Christianity from a European and global perspective. His research centres on religious history, with particular attention to its institutional aspects and to religious dissent, reform, and contestation.

In the Winter Term 2025/26, he was a POLY Writing Fellow in the Writing Group "Seeking Salvation." During the group's meetings at Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften Bad Homburg in November 2025 and April 2026, he developed his contribution to the first volume of POLY's forthcoming three-volume book project, Doing Christianity: A Praxeological Guide to Polycentricity and Plurality of Premodern Christianities.