AAMW Students
Meg received an A.B. in Classics from Princeton University in 2005 and is currently a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Her interests lie in the archaeology and topography of the city of Rome and Roman cities elsewhere, and she studies both archaeological and theoretical aspects of Roman urbanism and urban morphology during the first millennium A.D. Her dissertation addresses the physical and social evolution of the ancient Subura in Rome during this long period and examines how the topographical development of the region both shaped and was shaped by the shifting social, political, and economic dynamics. Meg also contributes to Penn’s Mapping Augustan Alexandriaproject, and she has excavated in North Carolina, Pompeii, and Athens. Since 2007, she has been working on the Villa Magna Project, based near Anagni, Italy, where, in addition to excavating, she studies the late antique and medieval occupation history of the site and the various building techniques of its structures.
Emerson Avery graduated in 2005 with a B.A. in Ancient Greek from Haverford College and Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology from Bryn Mawr College, where his senior thesis examined the expression of a nascent Greek ethnic identity at the colony of Empúries, Spain, during the Iron Age. He spent the 2005 academic year developing this research as a Fulbright Fellow at the German Archaeological Institute in Madrid before joining AAMW in the fall of 2006.
His interest in the construction of identity, especially in colonial and other situations characterized by an unequal power dynamic, led him to the study of Late Antiquity and the imbrication of a variety of peripheral Western Mediterranean places with the Imperial center. His thesis explores the development of settlement and communication dynamics in the Hinterland of Marsala, Sicily during the period 300-900 CE, from landscape archaeological and practice theoretical perspectives.
Emerson has worked on projects in Spain, Italy, and France.
After receiving her B.A. degree in Classical Languages from Carleton College (2007), Sarah worked at the Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. At Penn, she will focus on Roman art and archaeology.
After a year of language-teaching and travelling in Brazil, Miriam received her B.A. in Archaeological Studies and Classical Civilizations at Yale University (2005). She had already gained field experience in the US and in Italy and was trained in conservation techniques and the historiography of Minoan civilizations at Palaikastro, Crete. She subsequently joined AAMW with a strong interest in the Aegean Bronze Age, especially Minoan Crete. She now does fieldwork with the Institute for Aegean Prehistory Study Center for East Crete and participates in the Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project. Her dissertation, a catalog and typology of Neopalatial houses on Crete, is titled "Neopalatial Domestic Architecture on Crete: A Contextual Analysis."
Peter holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College in Engineering modified with Computer Science. In 2008, he earned a Master's degree in Information Science and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Peter's research focus is the Bronze and Iron Ages in Anatolia and he has excavated in Turkey for a number of years. He is particularly interested in Anatolia's interactions with the Greek world to the west and the Near Eastern polities to the southeast. He plans to investigate the nature of cultural exchange among these regions and the effects of Anatolia's unique landscape upon these exchanges. Because of his technical background, he is naturally also interested in archaeological informatics.
Lara received a B.A in Classical Archaeology from the City University
of New York, Hunter College in 2011, and also holds a B.F.A in
Theatrical Set Design from the University of North Carolina School of
the Arts (2006). She worked from 2006 to 2011 as a designer, draftsman
and scenic painter for theater and film in New York. While studying at
CUNY, she participated in two seasons of fieldwork and study as a
member of the Palazzo Imperiale project at Ostia Antica (Italy). At
AAMW, she intends to pursue research interests in Hellenistic art and
particularly architecture around the Mediterranean, as well as
relationships between the Hellenistic kingdoms and Republican Rome.
Additionally, given her background as a draftsman, she is interested
in applications for digital visualization in archaeology.
Valentina obtained degrees in classical archaeology at La Sapienza, Rome (2000) and in the pedagogy of antiquity at the Università degli Studi di Ferrara (2003). Before joining AAMW, she worked for the Study-Abroad Program of the University of California in Siena, Italy, for several years. Valentina’s excavation experience ranges from Etruscan necropoleis, to urban sites such as the Meta Sudans and the Sacra Via in Rome, to the medieval Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala in Siena. She has recently focused on GIS applications in urbanism, landscape archaeology, and the study of early modern emulation of antiquity. Her ongoing projects include research on two Etruscan vases from Penn’s Museum collection, an analysis of Fascist colonies in Italy with references to ancient Roman models, and a joint effort with fellow student Stephan Zink in reconstructing the columnar façade of the Temple of Apollo Palatinus in Rome.
Nurith received her B.A. degree in Classical Archaeology and Art History from Tel Aviv University in 2004. She subsequently continued her M.A. studies in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures. She has participated in excavations at Apollonia-Arsuf, Ashkelon in Israel and at Pachia-Ammos industrial area in Crete. Since 2005 she has served as Assistant Director of the Kabri Archaeological Project, which includes both excavation and survey. Nurith joined the AAMW program as a Fulbright scholar and pursue her interests in Middle and Late Bronze Age cultures of the Aegean and the Levant regions. Her dissertation is a comparative study of the emergence of palatial institutes in the Aegean and the Levant during the beginning of the second millennium.
Colleen Kron received a B.A. in Classics and Anthropology (2008) from Northwestern University, where her undergraduate thesis explored the application of anthropological theories of memory to the study of Greek hero cult. During her undergraduate career, Colleen studied at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, and gained excavation experience in Greece (Petsas House, Mycenae) and in the United States (Saints' Rest, Michigan). Colleen joined AAMW to pursue her interests in the Aegean Bronze Age.
Sarah received her B.A. (2007) from the University of Arizona for which she wrote an Honor's Thesis concerning Minoan jewelry. During her undergraduate career Sarah studied in Orvieto, Italy and Paris. Her research interest is in the Bronze Age Aegean with a particular focus on luxury items. Continuing on at the U of A, she received her M.A. (2009) in Classical Studies with an emphasis in archaeology. Her M.A. thesis addressed preceptions of the past by examining Minoan heirlooms found within Early Iron Age burial contexts. Sarah has participated in the Mount Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project for the past three summers.
Tanya received a B.A. in Anthropology and an M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Toronto. Her Master’s thesis was titled “The Bronze Age Trade of Egyptian Stone Vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean”. Her extensive fieldwork experience includes projects in Ontario, Cyprus, Greece, and the Middle East. She has worked with flotation material, human and animal bones, as well as Middle Eastern and Cretan pottery. Tanya’s interests include Bronze Age trade in the Eastern Mediterranean, social complexity, pottery analysis, the study of luxury items, and metallurgy. Her dissertation is entitled "'Recovering' Metal Vessels through Ceramic Imitations on Crete during the Middle Minoan Period."
Kate received her B.A. in Art History and Classical Civilizations from Wellesley College in 2007. She went on to receive her M.St. in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature at Balliol College, Oxford in 2008, where her thesis explored the symbolic function of landscape and the relationship of place, myth and memory in ancient constructions of identity, working with Greek and Roman historical texts and Lucan’s Bellum Civile. While an undergraduate, she participated in field projects at Pompeii (with the Anglo-American Project in Pompeii) and in Argilos, Greece (with the University of Montréal), moving steadily eastward and steadily backwards in time, before becoming involved with the University of Chicago’s Zincirli expedition in south-eastern Turkey in 2008. She has excavated at Zincirli for the past four field seasons while living and traveling in Turkey and the Middle East, and in 2011 began work with Dr. Lauren Ristvet in Naxcivan, Azerbaijan. Her research interests include broad questions of identity and social change in antiquity, particularly as reflected in the domestic sphere; her current focus is on material culture related to textile production, with emphasis on ethnographic and experimental components. At Penn she also hopes to explore more current issues of site preservation and access and the role of archaeology or the antique in modern state-building, with a focus on policy creation and implementation.
Daira earned her BA in Classics, with a focus on archaeology, at the University of Pisa, Italy, with a thesis on the Roman military installations along the eastern limes. During her undergraduate years she participated in archaeological excavations in various sites in Italy. She then completed a specialization program in Classical Archaeology at the University of Genova, Italy, where she wrote her dissertation thesis on an amphorae context from the Forum of Nerva. Before joining AAMW Daira lived and worked in Rome for six years where she participated in the excavations in the Forum of Augustus, Forum of Caesar, Palatine and Villa of Maxentius. Daira joined AAMW to pursue her interests in Roman classical archaeology. She is particularly interested in architecture, limes issues, techniques and methodologies of excavation, material culture with a special focus on amphorae and trade and economy, and computer applications. She is currently involved in the project of excavation in the Villa of Maxentius, Rome, with the University of Boulder, Colorado.
Jordan Pickett graduated in 2006 from Indiana University with a BA in the History of Art, Religious Studies, and Medieval History. Jordan's research is situated at the intersection of architecture and social history: published and under-review projects include studies of the economics of masonry construction in medieval Anatolia, early modern conflicts over Holy Places in Palestine, and Byzantine iconoclasm. After work at the Villa Magna Project and in Cappadocia, Jordan has most recently served as an intensive survey team leader and architectural investigator for the British Institute in Ankara's Avkat Project, based in Mecitözü, Turkey. Jordan’s dissertation, “Water After Antiquity” is a comparative study exploring the diverse afterlives of Roman baths and hydraulic architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity. Jordan very much looks forward to joining the Danish excavations at Jarash, Jordan this summer, for work related to his dissertation.
Amanda holds a B.A. in Archaeological Studies from Yale University (2002), for which she wrote a thesis on the role of the crocus in the Bronze Age Aegean economy and rites-of-passage. The following year she earned her M.St. in European Archaeology at Oxford University with concentrations in Greek Vase-painting and the Archaeology of Bronze Age Greece. Her fieldwork experience includes excavations in Connecticut, Copacabana Bolivia, Akrotiri, and Pompeii, and for the past three summers, she has worked at the Agora Excavations in Athens. While a student in the Penn Post-baccalaureate Program in the Classics last year, Amanda assisted with the research of the Attic red-figure cups in the Penn Museum for publication in the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. As she begins the AAMW program, she will continue with this project and plans to address her other research interests, especially perceptions of the past in antiquity, as demonstrated though heirlooms and literature.
Steve received his M.A. in Archaeology at Gent University in Belgium (2007) with a thesis on the monumental circular architecture of the early third millennium BC in the Hamrin region, Iraq. Subsequently he went for further specialization to Leiden University in the Netherlands to take part in a two year Research Master program in which he focused on mobility, nomadism, and urbanisation in the context of Early Bronze Age Northern Mesopotamia. Throughout these studies he participated in various excavations in Belgium, Corsica (Mariana), and Tunisia (Carthage). In recent years his fieldwork focused on the Middle East, where he worked at Umm el-Marra and Tell Hamoukar in Syria, and at Oglanqala in Naxcivan, Azerbaijan. He is currently also involved in the publication project of al-Hiba, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Lagash. Steve joined the AAMW program to pursue his primary interests in the cultural continuum that spanned the Iranian Highlands and the Mesopotamian lowlands during the Early Bronze Age.
Anna received her BA from Baylor University (2010) in the University Scholars Program, a broad liberal arts degree that allowed her to explore her interests in both Classics and Art History. While at Baylor she completed a senior thesis addressing the image of Aeneas in ancient art with a specific focus on late-antique illustrated manuscripts of Virgil’s Aeneid. At Penn Anna continues to explore the transition from the ancient to the medieval world by studying late antique and Byzantine art and architecture. Her research has spanned topics such as temple reuse, non-elite domestic architecture, and Cappadocian rock-cut churches. She is also very interested in medieval Greek literature and epigraphy. In the summer of 2011, Anna participated in the Sofiana Archaeological Project on Sicily.
Lucas received his BA in Classical Archaeology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009, and also completed the post-baccalaureate program in Classics at the same university (2011). While at UNC, he conducted field work on Crete at the site of Azoria, and recently at Gordion in Turkey. Lucas is mainly interested in Greek architecture and monumentality, particularly focusing on the construction and maintenance of past identities through visual representation and aesthetic principles.
Kurtis received his BA in Classical Languages from UC Berkeley (2009). At Berkeley, he developed an interest in early Greek history and culture and its contact with the Near East. He is especially interested in the the evolution of the Homeric Epics and modes of transmission in the early Aegean. His broader interests include Greek perceptions of luxury and wealth and their perceived relationship to the Near East. As an undergraduate he participated in field programs at Petsas House, Mycenae, and twice at Nemea, Greece.