Dr. Katia Cytryn-Silverman is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology and Dept. of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and specializes in Islamic Archaeology and Material Culture. She teaches a variety of courses, from introductories to specialized seminars, dealing with her main areas of expertise: Umayyads, Mamluks, Mosque Architecture and Road Archaology. While her research on Mamluks and road archaeology goes back to her doctoral thesis, her interest on the Umayyads and early Islamic mosque architecture deepened following her ongoing archaeological projects at Khirbat al-Minya and at Tiberias, both on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. The former site is a caliphal residence of the early eighth century in the midst of an agricultural estate, reused by the Franks and Mamluks as a sugar factory. At the latter she explores the remains of the old city center, where one finds, amongst others, both the main church and the early congregational mosque. This mosque - of great importance as Tiberias was the district capital of Jund al-Urdunn - has various phases up to the elevent century, perhaps including the earliest remains of a mosque ever excavated, apparently datable to the seventh century.