Laura Banducci banducci@umich.edu

Laura earned a combined honors B.A. in Classics and History from McMaster University, Canada in 2006.  She received a Commonwealth Scholarship to complete an M.Phil in Classics at the University of Cambridge in 2007.  Her M.Phil thesis examined the archaeological evidence for Etruscan chariot racing and explored how the Etruscans ascribed to the sport a distinct meaning which differed from the Greek and Roman racing traditions.  Her field experience includes excavations at Calleva Atrebatum in Silchester, England (2004), at the Roman villa at Ossaia, La Tufa outside Cortona, Italy (2005-2006), and the Antikythera Survey Project, Greece (2007).  Most recently, she participated in the American Academy in Rome's Howard Comfort Summer Program in Roman Pottery (2008).  Her academic interests include Italian archaeology, cultural contact in early Italy, the Etruscan language, ancient entertainment culture, and a newfound appreciation for pottery production and eating habits as cultural indicators.  At Michigan she has also been experimenting with using GIS for plow-zone modeling in archaeological survey.

Seth Button sbutton@umich.edu

Seth Button received his B.A. (Classical Archaeology) from Dartmouth and M.A. (Anthropology) from the University of Michigan. His dissertation presents the results of a comparative analysis of regional surveys on the island of Cyprus, where he is involved with several continuing field projects. Seth's research interests include settlement patterns and land use, archaeological survey methods and the interpretation of survey data, the aceramic Neolithic outside the Levant, the Archaic of the Great Basin, paleoclimatic reconstruction and human ecology, archaeological geomorphology, and premodern farming, horticulture, and animal management in the circum-Mediterranean. Financial support for travel and research has been provided by IPCAA, Rackham, the International Institute, the John Griffiths Pedley Travel and Research Fund, and the Center for Russian and East European Studies. Seth currently holds a Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship.

Photo credit: Professor Michael Rogers, Ithaca College

Dissertation Title: Human Ecology in Early Prehistoric Cyprus

Ivan Cangemi cangemi@umich.edu

Ivan received his B.A. in Classical Studies and Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2008, with a thesis on the formation of Roman ethnic identity and political ideology during the archaic period. His interests include state formation and cultural identity in central Italy (MBA-EIA), the ethnography of archaeological theory and practice, and the impact of anthropological theory on classical archaeology. He has participated in fieldwork projects in Italy (Trebula Mutuesca and Poggio Civitate), England (Wallingford Burh to Borough Research Project), and the U.S (Jackson Park Archaeological Project).

Henry Colburn preater@umich.edu

Henry’s research focuses primarily on the Achaemenid Persian empire. Specifically he is interested in assessing the nature and impact of Achaemenid rule using models of empire, and in testing archaeologically the hypotheses concerning this rule generated by textual and art historical studies. He is also curious about secondary state formation in the periphery of the empire. He has degrees from the Universities of St. Andrews (2005) and Colorado (2007), and has conducted fieldwork at Halmyris in Romania, on Mallorca in the Balearic Islands, at Pichvnari in the Ajarian Autonomous Region of the Republic of Georgia, and at Tel Kedesh, Israel.

Angela Commito acommito@umich.edu

Angela graduated in 2003 with an A.B. in Classics/Archaeology from Bowdoin College, where she began studying ancient water-related technologies and their impact on health and hygiene.  The following year she lived in Rome as a Fulbright Fellow conducting independent research on the aqueducts of Rome and Ostia and examining connections between status and access to water in urban environments.  In 2007 and 2008 Angela examined the Roman- and Ottoman-period waterworks in the landscape surrounding the city of Aphrodisias in Turkey as a member of the Aphrodisias Regional Survey Project.  She has also worked in the  field in Italy on projects at Paestum, Ostia, and the Forum Romanum.  Her dissertation research will focus on complex human-environment interaction in the ancient Roman world, with an emphasis on exploring the impacts of human exploitation of natural resources.  Before joining IPCAA, Angela researched and wrote articles on American slavery and the Civil War at a non-profit outreach center in Maryland.

James Cook cookrj@umich.edu

James completed his BA in Political Science at McGill University and his MA in Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada. He has worked in a variety of field, administrative, and specialist capacities with archaeological projects conducting excavation and survey in Jordan (1995-6, 1998-9, 2000-1), Tunisia (1997-9, 2004-6), Italy (2006), and Egypt (2007-8). Recently, he has studied Roman ceramics at the American Academy in Rome (2006) and remote sensing techniques with the National Park Service (2007). His research interests include geo-archaeology, ancient technology, and the economy, society, and culture of the Hellenistic and Roman periods in the eastern Mediterranean. His dissertation explores the social and economic roles of the Graeco-Roman period irrigation systems of the Fayum region of Egypt. Since 2007, James has been locating and excavating ancient canals as a member of the UCLA/RUG Fayum Project.

Dissertation Title: Economy, Society and Irrigation at a Graeco-Roman Site in Egypt: the Karanis Canal System

Catherine Crawford clyon@umich.edu

Dissertation Title: Decorated Spaces on Late Bronze Age Crete: A View from Outside the Palace Walls

Kevin Dicus kdicus@umich.edu

Kevin is a fourth year graduate student in the department. He received both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the University of Arizona. His interests include early Roman archaeology and approaches in interpreting sacred landscapes. Kevin is spending the year in Tolfa, Italy working on an Etrusco-Romano sanctuary at Grasceta dei Cavallari, which will be the topic of his dissertation. 

He supervises an excavation in Pompeii and excavates with the Gruppo Archaeologico Romano at a Roman villa rustica and Etruscan necropolis in the Monti della Tolfa region.

Dissertation Title: The Sanctuary at Grasceta dei Cavallari:
Etruscan Ritual and Religion through the Monuments and Votives

Dan Diffendale diffenda@umich.edu

Dan received his B.A. in Classical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. While at Penn he worked with the Corinth Computer Project on a range of studies from stone-by-stone digitization to landscape-scale analysis. After a pleasant post-graduation interlude in the uplands of central Italy, he returned to the Penn Museum as a research assistant and lab manager with the Archaeological Mapping Lab. Besides fieldwork in Pennsylvania (Hans Herr House) and Italy (Trebula Mutuesca), he has worked most recently at Mt. Lykaion in Arkadia, Greece. Dan's interests include the spread of writing systems and epigraphic culture, particularly in 1st Millennium BCE Italy; Italic military technology; the prehistoric Peloponnesos and GIS applications in archaeology.

Jason Farr jasfarr@umich.edu

Jason received his B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2005, with a double major in Archaeology and Classics. While there he worked with Mississippian artifacts in the Archaeology laboratory, and also received the Eugene Tavenner Award for Excellence in Classics. After graduating he spent two years working on several cultural resource management projects involving both survey and excavation in the Midwestern U.S. Jason has also acquired extensive field experience in Europe: at Pompeii (2004), the Roman military fort at Sanisera, Spain (2006-2007), and most recently at Gabii, Italy (2008). He is primarily interested in issues of identity and cultural interaction during early Roman expansion, particularly in Italy and the western Mediterranean. His broader interests also include field survey methodology, ceramic analysis, and domestic architecture.

Lydia Herring-Harrington herrilyd@umich.edu

Lydia’s interests in the ancient world encompass social history, material culture, artistic production, and ritual/religion, with a particular focus on domestic art and archaeology and urban space. Her dissertation examines the network of urban shrines at Pompeii in order to connect small-scale ritual across an array of constructed spaces. Lydia has excavated an Elymian settlement with the Monte Polizzo Project in Sicily (2004), Roman industrial space with the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia (2005), and Turkish and Early Modern occupation levels at Corinth with the Corinth Excavations (2007). In addition, Lydia is pursuing a Certificate in the field of Museum Studies, and she has curatorial and collections management experience gained prior to joining IPCAA and afterward. Her museum-related activities at Michigan include the exhibition “Building a New Rome: The Imperial Colony of Pisidian Antioch (25 BC to AD 700)” at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and an internship at Nichols Arboretum. She received her B.A. from Bowdoin College in 2001, attended the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome in Spring 2000, and was a Student Associate Member at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 2006-07.

Dissertation Title: The Network of Urban Shrines at Pompeii

Nicole High nicohigh@umich.edu

Nicole completed her Magister (Master) in 2008 at the University of Vienna, Austria with a major in Classical Archaeology and minors in Papyrology and Ancient History. The central point of her thesis was the ships and boats on the Nile mosaic in Palestrina, Italy. By combining her interests in papyrology and archaeology she hopes to further explore the Late Antique Roman East. Her past field work experience includes several seasons in Palmyra - Syria, Ephesos - Turkey, Amheida - Egypt, Carnuntum - Austria, Velia – Italy. She most recently participated in the Summer Institute of Papyrology hosted by the University of Michigan.

Emily Holt emholt@umich.edu

Emily acquired her undergraduate degree in Classical Languages at the College of St. Benedict/St. John's University in Minnesota.  She has earned masters degrees in Anthropology and Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan and is a candidate in a joint PhD program combining Anthropology and the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology.  Emily works as the Environmental Archaeologist for the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia, where her research interests are in the Roman economy and health, diet, and disease in the ancient world.  She is also pursuing a dissertation project involving survey and excavation on the Middle Bronze Age site of Siddi Plateau in Sardinia.  Her dissertation will address the Middle Bronze Age structures and natural resources on and around the site and their implications for the formation of social hierarchy on Sardinia.  Emily is currently in Villanovaforru, Sardinia, on a Fulbright grant.

Ryan Hughes rchughes@umich.edu

Ryan earned his B.A. in 2003 in both Classical Studies and Philosophy from Hanover College, Indiana.  He went on to earn his M.A. at Tufts University where his master's thesis used evidence from North Africa to rethink the study of Roman aqueducts and their effect on rural as well as urban development.  While at Tufts he received a formal award for Outstanding Contribution to Undergraduate Education in recognition of his work as a teaching assistant.  Ryan has had extensive fieldwork experience excavating at Pompeii with the Anglo-American Project and Murlo, Italy where he served as assistant director for one season.  Most recently, he worked as a GIS technician for the Aphrodisias Regional Survey project directed by Prof. Chris Ratte.  At Michigan, Ryan plans to explore pre-Roman cultural systems in North Africa and elsewhere in hopes of understanding Roman methods of administrative and cultural integration.  Methodologically, he is interested in developing new techniques aimed at understanding the processes of site abandonment as well as the application of computers in the recovery, analysis, formation and presentation of archaeological data.

Lorraine Knop lknop@umich.edu

Lorraine studied abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (Spring 2000) and earned her B.A. in Classical Studies and Classical Languages from Vanderbilt University (2001). After teaching middle- and high-school Latin, she earned an M.A. in Classical Archaeology from Florida State University (2005). Lorraine has excavated for seven seasons at a number of sites in Greece and Italy, including the Athenian Agora, Poggio delle Civitelle, Cetamura del Chianti, and the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia. She has most recently excavated at the site of Ostia Antica, where she participated in excavation of an imperial bath complex at the Palazzo Imperiale. Lorraine’s research interests center upon ancient food, particularly cereal storage and production, baker identity and status, and domestic milling and baking in the Italian peninsula. Lorraine has a sincere enthusiasm for pedagogy and has served as the sole instructor or led discussion sections for a number of university courses, including various levels of Latin, Field Archaeology, Roman Archaeology, Roman Civilization, and Greek and Latin Etymology. In addition to the college courses that she has taught, Lorraine has been involved in several forms of public outreach for the Classics, including work as a docent at the Nashville Parthenon, guest lectures on archaeological fieldwork to school groups, and assistance at Kelsey Museum Family Days.

Dissertation Title: The Role of Bakers and Bakeries in the Roman Economy and Society

Tom Landvatter tland@umich.edu

Tom graduated in 2006 from Penn State University with B.A.s in History and Classical Archaeology, where his senior thesis examined the nature of the government of the Parthian Empire. As an undergraduate, he gained field experience excavating at the site of Mendes in Egypt in 2004. Tom’s area of specialty is Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, though his interests extend to the broader Near East during this period, as well as the later phases of Pharaonic Egypt. His interests include cross-cultural interaction and its effect on material culture, the archaeology of ethnicity, mortuary theory, and the study of archaeological formation processes, as well as epigraphy and numismatics. He participated in the American Numismatic Society’s Summer Graduate Seminar in 2006, and most recently excavated at the site of Tel Kedesh, Israel.

Kate Larson kalars@umich.edu

Kate received a BA in Classical Archaeology from Macalester College (Saint Paul, MN) in 2005 and a MA from the University of Minnesota in Ancient Art and Archaeology in 2009.  Her two thesis papers at Minnesota were an analysis of the Herod the Great’s expression of kingship at Caesarea Maritima through the lens of the architectural precedents and antecedents for his palatial complex there, and the preparation of the beads and pendants from Tel Anafa, Israel for publication.  Kate has participated in field projects in Israel and Greece, most recently as a square supervisor at the joint University of Michigan/University of Minnesota excavations at Tel Kedesh.  Her primary research focus is cultural expression and religious change at the crossroads of the Mediterranean world and the Near East during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, as viewed through the minutia of daily life.  Kate worked in the Research and Collections Department of the Science Museum of Minnesota for two years and is interested in archaeological and museum ethics and the communication of academic methodology and research to the non-scholarly public.

Karen Laurence karenlau@umich.edu

Karen received her B.A. from Ohio University (Athens, Ohio) and her M.A. in ancient Greek from the University of Georgia (Athens, GA). Her Master’s Thesis was entitled “The Athenian Calendar Frieze: An Agricultural Calendar Dedicated to Demeter and Dionysos during the Time of Demetrios Poliorketes”.  She was an auxiliary professor in the Department of Classical Studies, Anthropology, and Archaeology at the University of Akron for three years, where she taught courses such as Greek mythology, Greek archaeology, Sports and Society in ancient Greece and Rome, and Introduction to the Ancient World.  Her research focuses on the archaeology of Greek cult.  She is a member of the East Isthmia Archaeology Project, which is undertaking a reexamination of the buildings east of the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia.  Her dissertation focuses on the archaeology of the infrastructure of Greek panhellenic sanctuaries, especially in terms of the non-monumental buildings and administrative aspects of these cult places.

Dissertation Title: The Administration of Cult: Archaeological Evidence for the Infrastructrure of Greek Sanctuaries

Leah Long leahel@umich.edu

Leah has a B.A. from Brandeis University in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History (2001) and an M.A. in Classics from New York University (2005). She has excavated at Tel Kedesh, Israel (University of Minnesota/Michigan) and Thapsus, Tunisia (Tunisian National Heritage Institute). For the past 6 years, she has worked in Aphrodisias, Turkey, where she has excavated in its urban center and surveyed the surrounding countryside on the Aphrodisias Regional Survey (NYU/University of Michigan). Her academic interests lie in landscape/survey archaeology and GIS applications, post-colonialism, and the ancient Roman economy. She is currently undertaking an archaeological study on the new marble quarries discovered in the territory of Aphrodisias. For her dissertation, she will investigate how Roman Asia Minor's rich marble resources contributed to provincial urbanization.

Dissertation Title: The Economy, Society, and Marble Culture of the Cities of Roman Asia Minor: Case Studies of Marble Use at Aphrodisias, Ephesus, Sardis, Sagalassos, and Pisidian Antioch

Hima Mallampati hbm@umich.edu

Hima earned a B.A. in Art History and Classical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where she was an associate managing editor of the Journal of International Law. Before graduate school, she was an associate at a law firm in New York City, where she worked on cases involving NAGPRA, copyright, trademark, and conspiracy claims. Hima has excavated in Germany and Israel. Her current research involves analyzing the acquisition of antiquities by non-profit museums.

Dissertation Title: Acquiring Antiquity: Plunder, Provenance and Politics in American Museums

Charlotte Maxwell-Jones cemj@umich.edu

Charlotte received her B.A in Classical Archaeology and Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro in 2003 and completed a post-baccalaureate in Classics at the University of California-Davis.  She has excavated in Belize (Mayflower), the Republic of Macedonia (Konjuh), and Israel (Ashkelon, Tel-Kedesh).  Her main research interests lie in Hellenistic Bactria, with a particular focus on native and non-elite populations, imperial frontiers, and long-distance trade.  Her other interests include osteology, queer theory, and Callimachus. 

Lynley McAlpine lynley@umich.edu

Lynley received her B.A. in Classical Studies (2005) and M.A. in Classics (2007) at the University of Western Ontario. Her major research paper for the M.A. focused on the use of the goddess Juno in Roman imperial portraiture from Livia to Domitia Longina. Lynley's principle research interests include Roman sculpture and painting, domestic architecture and decoration, and Pompeii. She is especially interested in expressions of cultural and social identity in Pompeian wall painting. Lynley has excavated in Pompeii, as well as at the basilica of San Severo in Classe as part of the American Academy in Rome's Summer Program in Archaeology. Recently she has participated in a program in Italy studying traditional painting techniques from Roman wall painting to seventeenth century oil painting and the theory and practice of their conservation and restoration.

Neville McFerrin neville.mcferrin@gmail.com

Neville received her B.A. from Oberlin College, where she majored in Greek, Latin and Archaeological Studies.  She received high honors in Greek and Archaeological Studies for her honors thesis on Samnite identity in the Republican era.   She has dug for three field seasons – two of them as a field supervisor – with the Sangro Valley Project (www.sangro.org) and for two seasons with the San Martino Archaeological Field School. Her academic interests include identity and ethnicity in early Italy, interactions between Romans and central Italians from the archaic through the Hellenistic periods, and the self-representation of Italian elites.  

Marcello Mogetta mogetta@umich.edu

Marcello obtained his degree in Classical Art and Archaeology in 2002 from the University of Rome-La Sapienza. After graduation he worked as a contract archaeologist in several CRM surveys and excavations in central and southern Italy; he received his MA in Classical Archaeology in 2006 from the University of Basilicata-Matera. Since 1998 he has been involved as a staff member in a variety of research projects on ancient Italian urban and rural sites in Rome (Vigna Barberini; Sacra via), Pompeii (Temple of Venus), Northern Etruria (Torre di Donoratico), Calabria (Taureana di Palmi) and Sicily (Ciminna). He co-authored a number of fieldwork interim reports and papers on Roman material culture and is currently Vice-Field Director of The Gabii Project, a multi-institution and international effort led by Nicola Terrenato which aims at surveying, excavating and studying the prominent Latin city of Gabii. His current research interests encompass urbanism and town-planning in 1st millennium BC Italy, focusing on Early Roman colonialism and its cultural and social implications. He is also interested in field survey and excavation methodologies, studying the application of manual and mechanical core-sampling techniques as a tool in obtaining site profiles and to assess the potential for excavation.

Jana Mokrisova jmokriso@umich.edu

Jana received her B.A. in Classical Studies from Trent University, Canada in 2009. Her past research focused on Classical Asia Minor, acculturation, and state formation. At Michigan, more specifically, she hopes to explore the process of cultural assimilation and acculturation in Pisidia and the surrounding areas. Her secondary areas of interest are the archaeology of ethnicity and landscape/survey archaeology. She has excavated in Sicily (Fiumedinisi) and Sardinia (Siddi Plateau).

Alexander Nagel aleos@umich.edu

Alex's research focuses primarily on the architectural sculpture of the monuments of Achaemenid Persepolis, the archaeology of color and gilding of monuments between c. 520 and 330 BCE, but also on the material culture of Archaic and Classical Greece. Alex studied in Berlin and London, and graduated from Humboldt University, Germany with a degree in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History. In Greece, Alex worked as an excavation trench supervisor and participated in a survey project in Tegea in Arkadia, a northern neighbor to ancient Sparta. His M.A. thesis dealt with material excavated in a sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Tegea. Following his graduation, Alex lectured for the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin and worked on material excavated by the Greek Archaeological Service in Stratos in Akarnania on the western Greek mainland. Alex is currently investigating the colors and gilding of the UNESCO world heritage monuments at Persepolis in Southwestern Iran in the heartland of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, where he is working in close collaboration with conservation specialists. He also continues to work on aspects of modern historiography of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History and is the co-founder of the Coroplastic Studies Interest Group.

Dissertation Title: Colors, Gilding and Painted Motifs in Persepolis: The Polychromy of Achaemenid Persian Architectural Sculpture, c. 520-330 BCE

Emma Sachs emsachs@umich.edu

Emma studied Classics and Art History at Stanford University, where she received a B.A. with honors in 2008.  For her senior thesis, she attempted to address the trend of repatriation of Classical objects from American museums with a proposal to redesign a gallery at Stanford's Cantor Center for Visual Arts.  Her scholarly interests include Roman sculpture and monumental architecture, the reception of Classical art from antiquity to the present, and Classical museology -- i.e., the study of Classical objects in the museum space.  Emma attended the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome in Fall 2006.  She has participated in Stanford's Monte Polizzo Project in Western Sicily and interned at the Getty Villa and at Christie's.  In the year after Stanford, she worked in the Local Grantmaking Program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and served on the board of Art in Action, an arts education nonprofit.  Her broader interests include issues surrounding the ethics of collecting and cultural heritage around the world.

Adela Sobotkova adelas@umich.edu

Adela earned her M.A. in Classical Archaeology and British and American Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic (2005) with theses on Roman portraits in Greece and Ethical and Legal issues in Kennewick Man controversy. She started doing fieldwork in the Czech lands at Roman site of Musov (2000-01), and then worked at Chersonese in Ukraine (2001-03), Acaia, Italy (2001), Xanten, Germany (2003), Lisbon, Portugal (2004), Tel-Kedesh, Israel (2006), Bulgaria (2004- present) and L’Amastuola, Italy (2007-present). While at IPCAA, Adela has pursued her interests in archaeological theory, field survey, earth sciences, remote sensing and anthropological approaches to archaeology. She has earned a certificate in history and is working on another one in GIS and spatial analysis. Her geographic area of focus is the Black Sea region, where Adela conducts most of her current research. She will be spending the upcoming year in Bulgaria as a research fellow at the American Research Center in Sofia, collecting data for her dissertation (entitled tentatively Kabyle in its Black Sea context; social organization and political evolution). During this year she will co-direct a survey project in the environs of the ancient city of Kabyle and investigate diachronic socio-political change, cultural hybridity and the impact of changing Thracian, Greek, Macedonian and Roman rule on the city and its hinterland.

Dissertation Title: Kabyle in its Black Sea and Mediterranean Context: Social Organization and Political Evolution