Cătălin Popa is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Leiden. He received his B.A. from the Babeș-Bolyai Unviersity and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. (2014) from the University of Cambridge. From 2014 until 2016 he was a Dahlem Research School Postdoctoral Fellow in the Excellence Cluster Topoi, Freie Universität Berlin. Much of his research has been concentrated on the integration of archaeological theory with statistical methods, particularly when applied to issues of identity and landscape. He also has a broad interests in European Prehistory, particularly the Iron Age period. He is additionally working on the relationship between archaeology and nationalism, exploring the instrumentalisation and mythologisation of the past for national purposes or various political aims.