Laura Banducci
Laura Banducci
Laura earned a B.A. in Classics and History from McMaster University, Canada in 2006. She received a Commonwealth Scholarship to complete an MPhil at the University of Cambridge in 2007 focusing on Etruscan art, archaeology, and language. In 2010 she completed an M.A. in Latin at the University of Michigan. She has worked on the Gabii Project, Italy since 2009, and has also worked in the field in Silchester, England (2004), the Roman villa at Ossaia, Italy (2005, 2006), and for the Antikythera Survey Project, Greece (2007). She participated in the American Academy in Rome's Summer Program in Roman Pottery and the British School at Athens’ course in Ceramic Petrology at the Fitch Laboratory, and dabbled in residue analysis with the Armitage Research Group at Eastern Michigan University. Her research focuses on cultural contact on the Italian peninsula, Roman ceramics, archaeological formation processes, Etruscan epigraphy, ancient leisure and entertainment culture, and Roman comedy. Her dissertation uses the study of ceramics and fauna from Republican Paestum, Populonia, and Musarna to consider foodways as an indicator of cultural change during Roman expansion. She currently holds a Rome Scholarship at the British School at Rome.
Dissertation Title: Foodways and Cultural Identity in Roman Republican Italy
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Andrea Brock
Andrea Brock
Andrea earned her BA in Classical Archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. After graduating, she spent a year working for the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, excavating local Native American material. Andrea also has six seasons of excavation and survey experience in Italy, including the Etruscan site of Poggio Colla (2007-2009), the Gabii Project (2010-2012), and Sant'Omobono Project (2011-2012). At Michigan, her primary research revolves around Archaic Rome, specifically dealing with questions of environment and topography of the nascent city.
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Ivan Cangemi
Ivan Cangemi
Ivan received his B.A. in Anthropology and Classical Studies from the University of Chicago in 2008. He is primarily interested in social developments in central Italy between the MBA and EIA. He has participated in fieldwork projects in Italy, England, and the U.S. Currently, he is a member of the S. Omobono Project (University of Michigan-Università della Calabria).
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Henry Colburn
Henry Colburn
Henry's research focuses on all aspects of the material culture of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and on the various theoretical and methodological currents that intersect with them, e.g. archaeology of empires, networks, formation processes, constructions of identity, etc. He is also interested in epistemology, in respect to both archaeology and ancient history, and is developing skills in ceramics, numismatics, and sigillography. In his dissertation he is addressing as a case study the period of Achaemenid rule in Egypt, ca. 525-404 BCE; at the same time he maintains a broader, empire-wide perspective in his scholarship. He has studied at the Universities of St. Andrews (2001-5) and Colorado (2005-7), and at the American Numismatic Society (2011), and has conducted fieldwork in Romania, Spain, the Republic of Georgia, Israel, and Egypt.
Dissertation Title: The Sixth Satrapy: Archaeology of Empire in Achaemenid Egypt
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Angela Commito
Angela Commito
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. She has also done fieldwork in Italy on projects at Paestum, Ostia, and the Forum Romanum. Angela is currently working in Turkey and Georgia (Vani Regional Survey). Her dissertation research focuses on the role of environmental change in the end of urban life in late antique Anatolia, with an emphasis on exploring how field survey and environmental archaeology can help shed light on historical problems. Before joining IPCAA, Angela researched and wrote articles on American slavery and the Civil War at a non-profit outreach center in Maryland.
Dissertation Title: Environmental Change and the End of Antiquity in Asia Minor
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Dwanna Crain
Dwanna Crain
Dwanna graduated Summa Cum Laude with her BA in Classics and Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2009. Her undergraduate honors thesis examined the extent of cultural change in Roman Spain by comparing three different sites, each with different patterns of development. Her research interests include Roman colonization, cultural issues at the peripheries of the Roman Empire, and use of ancient technology. She has excavated at Pompeii (2006), La Iglesia de San Severo in Ravenna/Classe (2008), and the Ancient Athenian Agora (2009-2010). At Michigan, she hopes to further pursue her interests in anthropology alongside her studies in classical archaeology.
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Dan Diffendale
Dan Diffendale
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), Italy (Trebula Mutuesca), and Ann Arbor, he has worked most recently at Mt. Lykaion in Arkadia, Greece. Dan's interests are currently in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age somewhere between Southern Italy and Western Greece, as well as in the rigorous study of ancient cult and ritual.
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Jason Farr
Jason Farr
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.
Dissertation Title: Lapis Gabinus: The Quarries at Gabii and the Roman tufo Industry
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Lorraine Knop Gagliano
Lorraine Knop Gagliano
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
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Nicole High
Nicole High
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.
Dissertation Title: Domesticating Spectacle in the Roman Empire. Representations of Public Entertainment in Private Houses of the Roman Provinces
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Emily Holt
Emily Holt
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 served for six years as the Environmental Archaeologist for the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia, where her research interests were in the Roman economy and health, diet, and disease in the ancient world. She has also conducted zooarchaeological studies for the Villa Magna Project, directed by Elizabeth Fentress with co-directors Andrew Wallace Hadrill (BSR) and Sandra Gatti (SBAL). With support from the National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant, Emily is currently 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.
Dissertation Title: Economy and Environment in Complex Societies: A Case Study from Bronze Age Sardinia
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Ryan Hughes
Ryan Hughes
Ryan earned his B.A. in 2003 at Hanover College in Classical Studies and Philosophy. 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 five seasons of excavation experience in Italy working at Pompeii with the Anglo-American Project and at Murlo where he served as assistant director for one season. Most recently, he has worked as the GIS technician for the Aphrodisias and Vani regional surveys. Ryan's research interests include consumptive practice and identity construction, the archaeology of the Black Sea, Pre-Roman North Africa, Roman imperial infrastructure and theoretical archaeology. Methodologically, he is interested in techniques of regional survey as well as the application of computers in the recovery, analysis, formation and presentation of archaeological data.
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Jenny Kreiger
Jenny Kreiger
Jenny earned her BA with honors in Classical Studies from Randolph-Macon Women’s College in 2008. She is currently revising her undergraduate thesis, “Remembering Children in the Catacomb of Domitilla,” for publication in a volume forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Her work also appears in A Cemetery of Vandalic Date at Carthage (JRA Supplementary Series 75). Two seasons at the Leptiminus Archaeological Project (Tunisia) and a semester of study at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (Rome) comprise her field experience. Jenny’s research interests revolve around children and childhood in the ancient world, especially their representations in funerary art and epigraphy in late-antique Rome and North Africa.
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Tom Landvatter
Tom Landvatter
Tom graduated in 2006 from Penn State University with B.A.s in History and Classical Archaeology. His focus is on mortuary practice in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, though his interests extend to the broader Near East during this period, as well as to the later phases of Pharaonic Egypt. More broadly, Tom works on cross-cultural interaction and its effect on material culture, the archaeology of ethnicity, mortuary theory, human osteology, and the study of archaeological formation processes, as well as papyrology and numismatics. He has worked on excavations in Poland, Israel, and Egypt.
Dissertation Title: Identity, Burial Practice, and Social Change in Ptolemaic Egypt
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Katherine Larson
Katherine Larson
Kate has a B.A. in Classical Archaeology from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, and an M.A. in Classical and Near Eastern Art and Archaeology from the University of Minnesota. She has been a supervisor at the Kelsey Museum’s excavation at Tel Kedesh in northern Israel since 2008, before which she worked on other archaeological projects in Israel and Greece. Kate has also participated in the American Academy in Rome’s Summer Program in Roman Pottery, and in 2012/13 she will be a Regular Member at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Kate is especially interested in craft production and ancient social and spatial networks. Her dissertation will examine artistic transmission and innovation in the Hellenistic world, using glass as a case study. Kate is also a member of the Museum Studies Program and believes strongly in the importance of teaching and academic outreach.
Dissertation Title: Crafting the Hellenistic World: Technology and Innovation in Hellenistic Glass Production
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Samantha Lash
Samantha Lash
Sam graduated with a BA in Classical Archaeology and a minor in Biological Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 2012. Her undergraduate honors thesis attempted to reconcile papyrological and archaeological data from a granary in Karanis. She has worked at the Gabii Project for three seasons since 2010. She has been involved with community outreach including volunteering since 2012 at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and organizing an Undergraduate Archaeology Conference in 2012. Her interests include examining papyri as artifacts as well as texts, Greco-Roman domestic and industrial architecture; urbanization and abandonment processes in the ancient world (particularly through the deposition of trash). Sam will be pursuing her Masters in Classical Archaeology at IPCAA.
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Paolo Maranzana
Paolo Maranzana
Paolo earned his BA in “Preservation of cultural heritage” (focus on Classical archaeology) at the Università di Pavia (Italy) in 2008, with a thesis that analyzed the urban development of Constantinople at age of Constantine and, in particular, the planning idea behind the creation of a “New Rome”. He then completed his MA in Classical Art and Archaeology at King’s College, University of London in 2010 during which he deepened his interest in town planning and urban development. His final thesis engaged in fact with the comparative study of the urban development of Aphrodisias and Hierapolis between the Late Hellenistic and the Early Roman period. Paolo’s academic interest also involves the interaction between cities and their hinterlands. At Michigan he wishes to continue such studies.
During his student career he participated in several archaeological digs as SAMI (scavo archeologico San Miniato, with the Università di Siena), Kent – Berlin Ostia Excavation (Kent University, UK) ELRAP Jordan Project (UCSD) and Gabii (University of Michigan). In 2011 Paolo was the field director of Pessinus Excavation (University of Melbourne). He also worked for some archaeological companies in Italy.
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Charlotte Maxwell-Jones
Charlotte Maxwell-Jones
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.
Dissertation Title: Ceramics of Bactra, 500 BCE-500 CE, Typology, Chronology, and Exchange
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Lynley McAlpine
Lynley McAlpine
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. Lynley's principle research interests include Roman domestic archaeology, wall painting, villas, memory and identity studies, Pompeii, archaeological theory, and ancient decorative stone use. Lynley has excavated in Pompeii (2004), at the basilica of San Severo in Classe as part of the American Academy in Rome's Summer Program in Archaeology (2006), and at Gabii (2009). She has also participated in a program in Italy studying traditional painting techniques from Roman wall painting to seventeenth century oil painting. Lynley’s dissertation examines imitation stone in Roman wall painting as a means of exploring social, ethnic, and political identity and status in Pompeii, transformations in attitudes toward luxury in the domestic sphere, and the relationship between memory and the reception of visual culture. She is the recipient of a Memoria Romana dissertation fellowship for 2011-2012.
Dissertation Title: Marble, Memory and Meaning in the Four Pompeian Styles of Wall Painting
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Neville McFerrin
Neville McFerrin
Neville received her BA in 2008 from Oberlin College, where she triple majored in Latin, Greek, and archaeology, receiving high honors in Greek and archaeology for her thesis on identity negotiation in Samnium. She has excavated in Italy with the Gabii project, the San Martino Archaeological Field School, and the Sangro Valley Project, where she acted as field supervisor for multiple seasons. More recently, she served as a materials specialist in northern Romania with the Porolissum Forum Project. Her current work focuses on the interactions between viewer and viewed in Pompeiian domestic space, the depiction of jewelry in Campanian wall painting, and ways in which Latin texts may be used in conjunction with archaeological evidence to suggest potential re-interpretations of these spaces.
Dissertation Title: Obscured Meanings: Privilege and Viewing in the Pompeian House
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Marcello Mogetta
Marcello Mogetta
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.
Dissertation Title: The Origins of Concrete in Rome and Pompeii
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Jana Mokrisova
Jana Mokrisova
Jana received her B.A. in Classical Studies from Trent University, Canada in 2009. Her past research focused on Aegean Prehistory, Anatolian archaeology and state formation. At Michigan, more specifically, she hopes to explore the processes of colonization and migration in Western Anatolia during the Iron Age and Early Classical period with a special focus on identity studies.
Her secondary areas of interest include landscape archaeology and the applications of GIS in survey methodology. Her fieldwork experience includes projects in Italy (Sicily, Fiumedinisi and Sardinia, the Siddi Plateau), Georgia (Vani Regional Survey) and Turkey (Aspendos).
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Alison Rittershaus
Alison graduated from Harvard College in 2012 where she received a BA in Classics. Her love of classical archaeology sprung partially from spending the spring semester of 2011 abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Her senior thesis was a comparison of the column of Trajan and Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, a project that led to her developing interest in the intersection between ancient texts and art. Her other interests include the aesthetic interpretation of ancient art, the public representation of roman political and military leaders, trying to memorize the names of different types of colored marble, and methods of public engagement (such as picture books and modern art) with the classics. She has excavated for two seasons with the Gabii Project, the second as an assistant in the finds lab, where she was able to touch lots of ancient fingerprints on the interior of lamp sherds.
Emma Sachs
Emma Sachs
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.
Dissertation Title: Stylistic Illusions in Campanian Wall Painting
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Elina Salminen
Elina Salminen
Even though she earned her BA in Greek Language and Literature from the University of Helsinki in 2010, Elina's interests started shifting towards Classical Archaeology during her year at the University of Edinburgh in 2007-2008. Since that time, she has slowly worked her way up the timeline and the Mediterranean from Neolithic Cyprus to Hellenistic Thessaly with a fair few stops along the way. Most recently, she has worked at Kastro Kallithea. She wishes to continue her way north: her current interests lie in the Argeads prior to Philip II and their interactions with areas adjacent to their kingdom. Other interests of hers include ethnic identity and history, which is why she also wishes to compare the archaeological record with written sources. At Michigan, she intends to bulk up on her archaeological theory and earn an MA in Anthropology. Her past employers include the National Museum of Finland and The Finnish Institute at Athens. She has written for the publication for the Association for Classical Philology in Finland and continues to write reviews for Arctos, the Finnish journal for Classical philology. She has received a Fulbright fellowship for 2011-2012.
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J. Troy Samuels
Troy earned his BA in Classical Languages from Carleton College in 2011, spending the fall of 2009 at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. His primary research deals with the archaeology of non-elites in the Ancient World. Specifically, he is interested in the effects wide ranging external factors had upon peasants during the Roman Republic. Other interests include the archaeology of Roman economies, zooarchaeology, and field survey methodology. Troy has excavated at Kenchreai in Greece (2009) and with the Gabii Project (2010-2012) near Rome, Italy, where he currently serves as a member of the field staff.
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Gregory Tucker
Gregory received a BA in Classics from the University of Florida and a MA in Maritime Archaeology from the University of Southampton with a dissertation titled "Trends in Public Construction at the Principal Harbours of Imperial Rome". He has been closely involved with the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia and The Portus Project in a variety of roles, from excavation to geophysical and spatial data collection and processing. In addition to these projects, he was a Research Assistant in Geophysical Survey for the British School at Rome’s Camerone from 2008-2010, and has worked on excavations and surveys in the US, UK, Spain, Italy, Tunisia, and Romania. His research interests include ethnicity and identity in the ancient world, ports and harbours – especially their use as conduits of message and ideology, and seaborne commerce in the early Roman Imperial period.
