Ingvild Sælid Gilhus is Professor of Religion at the University of Bergen, Norway. She is Vice-President of the International Association for the History of Religions (until 2015). She works in the areas of religion in late antiquity and new religious movements and her main publications include Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins: laughter in the history of religions (1997) and Animals, Gods and Humans: changing attitudes to animals in Greek, Roman and early Christian ideas (2006). She is book review editor for Numen and an editorial board member for Temenos.