Heather Badamo specializes in the arts of Byzantium and the East Christian world. Her research focuses on the intersection of Christian and Islamic visual culture, in particular the circulation of objects across the frontier zones of the eastern Mediterranean, with the related dissemination and transformation of artistic forms, ideas, and beliefs. Primary academic interests include theories of cultural exchange, philosophies of religious violence, art in war, and visual strategies for communal self-fashioning. Other interests are medieval image theory and the urban development of Cairo. She conducts research in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Georgia, and Turkey.

Her book project, entitled At the Frontiers of Faith: Images of Warrior Saints and Christian-Muslim Encounter in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean, focuses on the cult of the warrior saints as seen through the lens of its icons — images of aggressive saints believed to perform miracles of salvation and conversion — which provide insights into issues of interfaith relations between Christians and Muslims during the era of the Crusades. It questions perceptions of the medieval frontier as a site of conflict, arguing for the interface as a space of productive encounter and exchange. Her research has received support from the Fulbright Foundation, the American Research Center in Egypt, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, DC, and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. She received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Michigan in 2011 and was a Harper-Schmidt Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago from 2011-2015.