Russell Harris, has an MA in Oriental Studies from Balliol College, Oxford.

His duties at the IIS include editing entries for the Encyclopaedia Islamica, writing and improving etymologies, picture research, proofing and consulting on translations of Arabic texts, most usually for the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ series

He is a contributor to the Dictionary of National Biography, The Routledge Encyclopedia of 19th Century Photography and The Oxford Companion to Food. He has written many articles on Middle Eastern art for  various international journals and magazines and has published books on portraits of India's ruling princes from the archives of the V&A Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. He has also curated exhibitions of historic photographs in institutions throughout Europe and the Middle East as well as being a published literary translator.