Historian, philosopher, religious studies specialist, Hungarian Eötvös State Scholarship Awardee, Dr. Nemes received his PhD in philosophy, specializing in the theory of religions, from the University of Szeged’s Málnási Bartók György Doctoral School of Philosophy. His research interests involve phenomena of contemporary religiosity, various new religious movements, quasi- and para-religiosity, and other alternative frontiers of lived contemporary religiosities. He is a researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Arts, Research Institute of Art Theory and Methodology. Since 2025, he has been serving as the Deputy Director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR).
Nemes received his bachelor’s degree in history in 2017 at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, where he later pursued a master’s degree in religious studies, specializing in contemporary religions. Later, he defended his PhD in philosophy at the University of Szeged’s Málnási Bartók György Doctoral School of Philosophy under the supervision of Prof. András Máté Tóth.
Since 2017, Dr. Nemes has been actively participating in national and international associations. From 2019 to 2023, he served as the chair of the Philosophy Department of the Association of Hungarian PhD and DLA Students. He is a member of ISORECEA (International Study of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe Association), SIEF (International Society for Ethnology and Folklore), MAKAT (Hungarian Society for Cultural Anthropology), EuARe (European Academy of Religion), EASR (European Association for the Study of Religions), and ISSR (International Society for Science and Religion). At SIEF, he is a member of the Working Group on Ethnology of Religion and the Young Scholars Working Group. Moreover, he is a founding member of the Folk Arts and Vernacular Creativity Working Group. At MAKAT, he is a founding member of the Anthropology of Religion Working Group. Since 2025, he has been elected as a Board member in the SIEF Young Scholars Working Group and MAKAT.
He is one of the founders of CESAR (Central European Symposium for the Academic Study of Religion) – a CEE-based network of young religionists, doctoral students, and candidates. He is also the founder and chief organizer of the Interdisciplinary Students’ Conference on Religious Studies, Hungary's only yearly religious studies conference. Between 2020 and 2023, Nemes was a lecturer and thesis consultant at the University of Szeged’s Department of Religious Studies.
In 2023, he was awarded the prestigious Hungarian Eötvös State Scholarship, which enabled him to visit CESNUR (Center for the Studies on New Religions) for a six-month visiting research period. During this term, Nemes finalized his dissertation under the supervision of Professor Zoccatelli, which he successfully defended in early 2025. Since 2025, he has been serving as the new Deputy Director of CESNUR, after the passing of the late PierLuigi Zoccatelli.
He has published several articles on new, emergent, and alternative religions, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, Tai Ji Men, The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, Soka Gakkai, Damanhur, and various forms of neopaganism, such as Asatru. He specializes in the theory of religions and religious morphology, employing a functional approach and conducting fieldwork-driven inductive case studies.
See his list of publications here.