Dr. Stephennie Mulder is Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture in the Department of Art & Art History. She is a specialist in Islamic art, architectural history, and archaeology. Mulder worked for over ten years as the head ceramicist at Balis, a medieval Islamic city in Syria, and has conducted archaeological and art historical fieldwork in Syria, Egypt, Turkey, and elsewhere in the region. Mulder's book The Shrines of the 'Alids in Medieval Syria: Sunnis, Shi's and the Architecture of Coexistence, published in 2014, received numerous awards. She has also published on medieval and contemporary art history, Islamic archaeology, and cultural heritage, including in the Journal of Islamic Archaeology, the International Journal of Islamic Architecture, and The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology.

Mulder works on the conservation of antiquities and cultural heritage sites endangered by war and illegal trafficking. She has been a consultant for SHOSI, the Saving the Heritage of Syria and Iraq initiative, sponsored by the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, the Smithsonian Institute, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was on the Board of Directors for ASOR's Syrian Heritage Initiative, sponsored by the U.S. State Department. She also works as a consultant for the Department of Homeland Security's Cultural Property, Arts & Antiquities investigative group. Dr. Mulder, along with students, faculty and staff, founded UT Antiquities Action, an activist group that raises awareness about the accelerating loss of cultural heritage around the world. She has appeared in media interviews and written editorials for media outlets such as the BBC, IB Times, al-Jazeera, the L.A. Times, Time, and U.S. News and World Report on cultural heritage issues, Islamic art, antiquities, and the history of sectarian relations in Islam.