Michael Rand is a graduate of the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University (2003). He has worked for the Historical Hebrew Dictionary Project of the Academy of the Hebrew Language (2007-2013), and currently holds the position of Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Cambridge. His main field of expertise is Classical Hebrew piyyut, together with the manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah in which it is copied. Within a wider perspective, he is especially interested in the evolution of Hebrew poetry, both as a self-contained literary/linguistic phenomenon, as well as in its interaction with other Semitic traditions (e.g., Aramaic, Arabic).