Nicholas Sims-Williams studied Iranian languages, Sanskrit and Syriac at Cambridge, obtaining his PhD with an edition of a Sogdian miscellany of Christian texts translated from Syriac.
In 1976 he joined the staff of SOAS, University of London, remaining there until his retirement as Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies.
His research focuses on the Middle Iranian languages of Afghanistan and Central Asia, and on texts written in those languages.
His publications include a three-volume edition of Bactrian documents from Northern Afghanistan (2001–2012) and five volumes of Christian Sogdian texts in the series Berliner Turfantexte (1985–2019), as well as dictionaries of both Manichaean and Christian Sogdian.
