Valdimar Tr. Hafstein is a Professor of Folklore and Ethnology at the University of Iceland. He received his MA in folklore in 1999 and his Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied with Alan Dundes and John Lindow. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, the Meertens Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam, and the Georg-August Universität in Göttingen, as well as a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at New York University.
Valdimar was the president of SIEF (International Society for Ethnology and Folklore) from 2013-2017 and he chaired the Icelandic Commission for UNESCO from 2011-2012. He serves on the editorial boards for Ethnologia Europaea, the Journal of American Folklore and Cultural Analysis. He has published in English and Icelandic on topics ranging from cultural heritage to copyright, from UNESCO to contemporary and medieval legends, and from traditional wrestling to CCTV surveillance. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Portuguese, Croatian, and Danish. His latest research project, on swimming pool culture, has been covered in media worldwide, including in "Vital Signs" on CNN, in newspapers from the New York Times to the Haaretz, and from a science show on Sweden's Public Service Radio to afternoon traffic talk radio on La FM in Bogotá.
