Academic Background
2025 Qualified as an Associate Professor by the French Conseil National des Universités (CNU, Sections 15 and 76)
2024 Ph.D. in Chinese Studies (supervisor: Prof. Pierre Marsone), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (EPHE-PSL)
Ph.D. in Oriental Studies (supervisor: Prof. Dietmar Winkler), Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome
2019 – 2021 Chinese Certificate for Foreign Students, The University of Hong Kong
2017 – 2019 M.A. in Biblical Exegesis, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome
2017 Certificate in Modern Hebrew (level Dalet), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2015 – 2017 M.A. in Philosophy and Theology, Faculté Notre Dame, Paris
2008 – 2012 M.S. in Engineering, École Centrale Paris – CentraleSupélec, Université Paris-Saclay
Research and Professional Experience
Since 2024 Researcher, Faculty of Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Since 2024 Associate Researcher:
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- Centre de Recherche sur les Civilisations d’Asie Orientale (CRCAO), Paris
- Histoire et Sources des Mondes Antiques (HiSoMA / Sources Chrétiennes), Lyon
- Institute of Sino-Christian Studies (ISCS), Hong Kong
- ZECO – Zentrum zur Erforschung des Christlichen Ostens, Salzburg
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2024 – 2025 Visiting Scholar (invited by Prof. Rong Xinjiang 荣新江), Peking University, Beijing
2023 – 2024 University Honorary Research Assistant, École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), Hong Kong
Research Focus
Dr. Balmont’s research centres on Eastern Syriac Christianity in Tang-dynasty China (7th–10th centuries), known in Chinese sources as Jingjiao 景教. His work combines historical, philological, and theological approaches to the corpus of Chinese Christian manuscripts preserved in Dunhuang and other Central Asian sites. He also works on the transmission of Syriac theological traditions into Chinese, and on the broader question of cultural and religious exchange along the Silk Road. A secondary area of research concerns digital humanities methods applied to classical texts, including computational linguistics, neural fine-tuning, and the construction of specialised lexical databases for Chinese Christian terminology.
Honours and Awards
2025 — Grand Ricci Prize in Chinese Lexicography, Association Grand Ricci, Paris
2025 — George Bastide Prize, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de Toulouse
2025 — Hommage de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de Paris
2024 — Bellarmin Prize, Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome
2021 — Professor Ma Mang Prize in Chinese Studies, The University of Hong Kong
