Alram, Michael

Director of the Vienna Coin Cabinet (since 2008), Vice-President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (since 2013), President of the International Numismatic Council (since 2015)

Michael Alram (*1956) obtained his doctorate from Vienna in 1982, in Ancient Numismatics and Classical Archeology. His PhD thesis bears the title “Materialgrundlagen zu den iranischen Personennamen auf antiken Münzen: achaimenidische Satrapen, Persis, Sakas und Pahlavas“.

Between 1977 and 1982, Michael Alram was Assistant at the Iranian Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences before he became Research Assistant at the Numismatic Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Since 1982 he was Lecturer at the Institute for Numismatics and Monetary History of the University of Vienna, where he received the Venia Docendi in 1986.

In his capacity as Curator at the Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien since 1986, Michael Alram was responsible for Byzantine, Medieval and Oriental Numismatics. He served as Deputy Director of the Coin Cabinet since 2001 and as Director since 2008. Since 2013, Michael Alram is Vice-President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Michael Alram has co-curated exhibitions for museums in Austria and abroad that attracted wide interest, including “Alexander der Große und die Öffnung der Welt” (2009). He is the winner of several awards, most recently of the Archer M. Huntington Award of the American Numismatic Society (2016).

Among other things, he is Full Member of the Philosophical-Historical Class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (since 2003) and Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute (since 2012).

Michael Alram has a Wikipedia article in German and Italian.

The contact information can be found on the website of the Vienna Coin Cabinet.

A much more detailed CV of Michael Alram is available at the website of the International Numismatic Council.

The great range of Michael Alram as a researcher is illustrated by this YouTube film, covering a lecture he held in Russia.

A detailed interview (in German) with Michael Alram about the public visibility of the humanities was conducted by the science portal of the Gerda Henkel Foundation.