Yulia Ustinova was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in Russia, and received her PhD from the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1988. In 1990 she migrated to Israel. Her research focuses on ancient Greek religion and its role within the society. In addition to historical written and archaeological sources, she makes use of a multidisciplinary approach based on the application of results of cognitive neuroscience, anthropology, and sociology to the interpretation of historical phenomena.