Meg earned an A.B. in Classics from Princeton University in 2005, and while there she examined for her senior thesis the social history and prosopography of a prominent Sabellian family in Pompeii from the time of the Oscan city through the Roman period. Following her graduation, she taught Latin at a high school near Philadelphia. Her primary interests lie in the archaeology and history of Italy during the Archaic and Republican periods and the relationships between the Italic peoples and Rome during the formation of tota Italia. She also enjoys exploring broader issues of ethnic and social identity that emerge during periods of colonization throughout antiquity. Meg’s excavation experience prior to joining the AAMW program includes the sites of Pompeii and the Athenian agora. She most recently participated in the Penn-sponsored excavations of an imperial villa in Villamagna, Italy.

Contact:
email: maandrew@sas

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. Ethnicity and ancient colonialism, especially in the Iberian Peninsula, constitute his primary research interests, and before joining AAMW, he explored both--again in the context of Greco-Iberian intercourse--as a Fulbright Fellow at the German Archaeological Institute in Madrid, where he spent the 2005 academic year. He has also worked in the field at Athienou in Cyprus and at Tiermes, Plaza de Moros, and, most recently, Empúries in Spain. At Penn, Emerson intends to pursue his interest in questions of identity, in Iberia and elsewhere, as well as explore issues of methodology, and the role of GIS technology in archaeology.

Contact:
email: eravery@gmail

Status: Third year

After a year of language-teaching and traveling 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 (Sangro Valley Project, Abbruzzo) 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 politics and trade. She is also an accomplished musician (she plays the bassoon).

Contact:
email: miriacli@sas

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.

Contact:
email: vfollo@sas

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, writing an M.A. thesis entitled “The Genre of Aegean Miniature Frescoes Dating to the MMII-LMIb.” She has participated in excavations at Apollonia-Arsuf and Ashkelon, and 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 intends to continue pursuing her interests in art as a means of communication in Middle and Late Bronze Age cultures, with special emphasis on Aegean art and archaeology.

Contact:
email: nurithgoshen@hotmail

After a semester as visiting student at University College, London, Susan finished her B.A. in Ancient Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University (2000) with a senior thesis on the the absorption of pagan iconography into late Antique Judaism (“The Rabbis and the Sun God: Images of Helios and the Zodiac on Late Antique Synagogue Mosaics and Their Relation to Rabbinic Theology”). Entering AAMW, Near Eastern archaeology remained the main focus of her studies, although she expanded her interests to include Bronze Age Anatolia. Correspondingly, she participated in several excavations in the Ukraine (Chersonesus), Israel (Omrit, Tell el Assawir) and Turkey (Tell Atchana/Alalakh). Her special interests include women in the ancient world, imperialism and art, Hittite archaeology, and Bronze Age trade and internationalism. The latter subject has formed the basis of her dissertation: “Hittite foreign relations and Late Bronze age internationalism”.

Contact:
email: suhelft@sas

Andrew earned a B.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Michigan, and his primary focus is the Bronze Age Aegean, with special emphasis on the Late Bronze Age period on Crete. His dissertation, entitled “The LM IB/LM II Ceramic Transition in Central and Eastern Crete", seeks to elucidate the nature and extent of emerging Mycenaean influence and control on Crete in the Late Bronze Age. Andrew's primary interests include analogues in the material record to socio-political change and cultural exchange, as well as the mechanisms by which these processes occur. Other interests include the utilization of GIS for the documentation and analysis of archaeological excavation and survey data, remote sensing applications involving satellite imagery and aerial photography, as well as total station and GPS survey.

Contact:
email: ainsua@sas

Peri’s interests are Greek and Anatolian archaeology, archaeological survey practices, archaeological theory and historiography, and landscape studies. She has been involved in several projects in the last years, among them the Kerkenes, Gordion and, most recently a survey at Kastamonu. In her dissertation on the landscape of Achaemenid Paphlagonia she brings together her research interests in archaeological survey and regions on the margins of the Greek and Near Eastern worlds.

Status: A.B.D.

Beth Ann received her B.A. in Anthropology and Classical Studies at Ripon College, Wisconsin (1993) and an M.A. in Classical Archaeology at Florida State University (1996). Her focus at Penn is on Egypt (Middle and New Kingdoms) and Bronze Age Greece.  She has pursued several seasons of fieldwork in Egypt (Penn – Yale Expedition, Abydos) and on Crete (Chrysokamino, Halosmenos). More recently, Beth Ann became a member of the Cornell Halai and East Lokris project (CHELP) in Greece, a site that flourished from the Neolithic to the Byzantine period, for which she is the registrar and storeroom manager. Beth Ann’s main focus lies in the study of interconnections between Middle and New Kingdom Egypt and the Bronze Age Aegean which has resulted in her dissertation on “Late Bronze Age Aegean Ceramics in the Nile Valley: An Analysis of Idea and Practice in the Archaeological Record”.

Contact:
email: bjudas@sas

Justin’s research focuses primarily on Roman commerce, maritime archaeology, and ceramic chronology (especially amphoras). He holds a B.A. Classics from Loyola University, Chicago, and an M.A. in Anthropology and Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University. Most recently, he has been involved in the publication of ceramics and other finds from a range of underwater sites off the south and east coasts of Cyprus, the results of an ongoing (since 2003) long-term GIS-based maritime landscape archaeology project. The survey includes both intensive shallow-water investigations and remote sensing farther offshore. This has led to his involvement in issues of ethical and legal responsibility in deep-water explorations. Justin’s other work at present takes him to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, where he serves as Field Director for the excavation of an early Archaic shipwreck with international connections to Cyprus and the Levant as well as Aegean world.

Contact:
email: jleidwan@sas

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, Crete, 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, and the study of luxury items, in particular Egyptian stone vessels. She has recently begun work on her dissertation, tentatively entitled “The Origins of Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean: Distribution of Luxury Items and Raw Materials in the Bronze Age”.

Contact:
email: tanyamcc@sas

Linda received a B.A. in the double major of Archaeology & Ancient Near Eastern Cultures and Classical Studies (1992) and an M.A. in Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures (1998) at Tel Aviv University. For several years throughout her time at Tel Aviv University she worked as a research assistant for Professors Anson Rainey and Ze’ev Herzog as well as teaching English at Berlitz, Inc. Her fieldwork includes numerous sites in Israel (Gamla, Tel Kabri, Tel Gerisa, Tel-Yafo, Tell es-Safi), Crete (Ayios Charalambos), and Cyprus (Politiko-Phorades). Her main focus is the Aegean Bronze Age, Eastern Mediterranean Trade and Interrelations, and the Sea People/Philistine Cultures. She is currently writing her dissertation, entitled “Figural Motifs on Philistine Pottery and their Connections to the Aegean World”. Linda will be the Samuel H. Kress Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research during the 2007-2008 academic year.

Contact:
email: meiberg@sas

Before joining AAMW Emily received a B.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Michigan (2001) and an M.Phil. in Classics from the University of Cambridge (2003) where she studied urbanization, monuments and memory in the Greek colonies of Sicily and southern Italy. Her fieldwork experience includes archaeological survey in the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, excavation at the Roman villa site of Ossaia/La Tufa, and, most recently, excavation at the Sardinian Punic site of Truncu ‘e Molas with the Universities of Glasgow and Valencia and in Sicily at Stanford University’s Monte Polizzo Excavations. Emily’s Ph.D. research deals primarily with the Archaic Western Mediterranean—in particular with Greek and Phoenician colonization of western Sicily—and theories of colonization and landscape archaeology. Her work at Penn has also included the study of archaeological ethics and cultural heritage law. During the 2007-2008 academic year Emily will conduct her dissertation research in Rome and Palermo as a Fulbright fellow.

Contact:
email: emodrall@sas

Robin received her B.A. in Classics from the George Washington University (2005), writing a senior thesis entitled "Roman Copies: Understanding the Adaptation of Greek Styles within a Roman Context." She earned her M.A. in Classics from Tufts University (2007), where her research focused on the course of the Sacra Via in the Roman Forum and on feasting in the Homeric epics. Before joining AAMW, she participated in the American Academy in Rome's Classical Summer School and two seasons of the Monte Polizzo excavations in western Sicily. Her research interests include the ways in which Romans perceived the aesthetic and social values of art and how their use of art in the public and private spheres reflects these perceptions.

Contact:
email: rngo03@gmail

Jordan earned his B.A. in Medieval Art History and Religious Studies at Indiana University in 2006, with a senior thesis that investigated the devotional art of Marian pilgrimage in fifth and sixth century Palestine. Jordan entered AAMW to focus on Late Roman and Byzantine art and archaeology, while pursuing particular interests in the art and architecture of religious experience, spoliation and the rhetoric of destruction and reuse, GIS applications, political history, urbanism, and reception theory. His paper at the Byzantine Studies Conference in Toronto in 2007 was a product of his senior thesis research. Having excavated at Villa Magna near Anagni in the summer of 2007, he looks forward to subsequent field seasons with Penn in Italy, Cappadocia, and elsewhere.

Contact:
email: pickett.jordan@gmail

Before joining AAMW, Gabe received degrees in Anthropology and Archaeology from the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay (2000). He has participated in several archaeological projects including surveys and excavations in South America, Europe and the Middle East. His area of specialty is the Bronze and Iron Ages in Mesopotamia and Iran, and his interests focus on landscape archaeology, issues of politics and ideology in ancient empires, and computer applications in archaeology. Gabe’s publications include a monograph on the application of GIS and spatial analysis techniques in archaeology, and several articles on cultural complexity, landscape archaeology and ceramic analysis. He is currently working on a full analysis of Penn's 1966-68 excavations at Dinkha Tepe (Iran) for his dissertation: “Material Variability and Cultural Change: A study of the transition from Bronze Age to Iron Age in North-western Iran as seen from Dinkha Tepe”.

Contact:
email: pizzorno@sas
homepage: www.sas.upenn.edu/~pizzorno

Stacy specializes in the study of cross-cultural interaction in the Hellenistic Period and how it is manifested in material culture. Her primary interest is Ptolemaic Egypt, which is also the focus of her dissertation research. Stacy received degrees in Anthropology and Art History from the University of Maryland - College Park. Her past research includes a year-long internship in zooarchaeology at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum with Dr. Melinda Zeder, resulting in the study "The Hunting of Gazella subgutturosa by Early Domesticators in the Fertile Crescent: A Comparison of Wild and Domestic Animal Remains in the Archaeological Record", which was presented at ICAZ 2002. Stacy's fieldwork experience ranges from excavation at Caesarea Maritima, Israel, to survey in Mexico. In 2004, she joined Penn's excavations at Abydos, Egypt, where she worked on the Middle Kingdom tomb enclosure of Senwosret III with Dr. Josef Wegner. Currently, she excavates the Hellenistic and Persian levels at Kinet Hüyük in Turkey, which is conducted under the auspices of Bilkent University.

Contact:
email: poulosa@sas

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.

Contact:
email: amandasr@sas

Karen completed her BA and MA in Classical and Near Eastern archaeology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada (2001). She has excavated in Greece, England, Syria, and, most recently, Iran and is currently engaged in dissertation research on the subject of monsters and demons in Mesopotamian religion and culture.

Contact:
email: ksonik@sas

Originally aiming for a career in economics, Elif received a B.A. in Economics and German from Agnes Scott College, Atlanta GA (1995), and continued with an M.A. in Economics at the University of Pittsburgh, PA (1996). After several years of professional experience in product design, Elif decided to turn toward archaeology, and received an M.A. in History at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey (2003), graduating with a thesis entitled “Locally Produced Painted Pottery of Tarsus-Gözlükule: The Late Bronze to Iron Age Transition.” For several years Elif has been a member of the Tarsus Excavation Project and has conducted research on Bronze Age Anatolia, although her interests also include the Aegean, Mesopotamia, and Iran, where she recently conducted fieldwork as a member of Penn's Halil Rud research project. Elif's dissertation will deal with the formative stages of complex societies in Anatolia during the 3rd millennium B.C.E.

Contact:
email: elifunlu@sas

Günder joined AAMW with a B.A. in Architecture from the Middle East Technical University at Ankara (Turkey) and an M.A. in Art and Archaeology from Bilkent University, Ankara (1998). Her particular interest lies in the architecture and archaeology of the Byzantine world, which she manages to combine with a solid background in computer applications in archaeology. She also closely follows debates in the theory and methodology of all aspects of landscape archaeology. All this goes hand in hand with her participation in several international excavations and surveys in Turkey (Ephesus, Caria-survey, Çanakkale-survey). Recently she initiated a new field project for her dissertation on “Rural Landscape and Built Environment at the End of Antiquity: Limestone Villages of Southeastern Isauria”. Her survey in the rural countryside north of Silifke (southern Turkey) seeks to understand the role of the countryside during the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.

Contact:
email: gunder@sas

Stephan received his M.A. in Classical Archaeology, History and Political Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Austria (2003), after writing an M.A. thesis on “Hellenistic Archives: Architecture and Function”. In course of his studies he has spent two years as an exchange student at the Free University in Berlin and the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. In addition to several excavations in Austria and southern Italy, Stephan also worked for several seasons with a French crew at Dura Europos (Syria). After joining AAMW as a Fulbright-fellow, he continued his studies in Hellenistic and Roman urbanism and architecture, as well as social and economic history. He has also recently acquired an interest in the archaeology of the Islamic world. His current project is a reconstruction of the front of the Temple of Apollo Palatinus, for which he conducted field work in Rome during the summer of 2005.

Contact:
email: zinks@sas