Archaeology

Brandon Baker

Brandon Baker received an A.B. degree from the College of Charleston in Classics in 2010. After moving to Lubbock, Brandon received a M.A. in Classics from Texas Tech University and completed his thesis titled “Damnatus ut Artifex: The Craft of Mining in the Roman Provinces” under the guidance of Dr. Christopher Witmore. He finished a second M.A. in Classics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and completed another thesis titled “Shifting Centers of Production: The Amphorae Assemblages at Mons Porphyrites and Bir Umm Fawakhir” under the guidance of Dr. Jennifer Gates-Foster. Brandon received the Olivia James Traveling Fellowship from the AIA in 2020 to complete his research on the Roman Karystia. He is currently in the process of writing his dissertation. His interests are in landscape archaeology and archaeological methodology.
Curriculum Vitae

Amanda Ball

Amanda Ball’s research interests lie in cultural contact in the northern Aegean, sacred landscapes, ancient colonization and ancient magic. She has participated in a range of archaeological projects in England, Italy, and Greece, most recently with the American Excavations Samothrace. She received a B.A. cum laude in Classical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2014, and continued on to receive her M.A. in Mediterranean Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015. At Penn, she completed her Master’s thesis entitled “Custom Leaves Us Only at the Tomb: A Re-Examination of the Burial Mounds of Stryme”, a project which began her work on the Greek settlements of the north Aegean. She began the graduate program in Classics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in the fall of 2017. In the spring of 2019, Amanda completed her MA at UNC Chapel Hill and wrote a Master’s thesis entitled “A New Typology of Magic Dolls.” She received the Olivia James Traveling Fellowship from the AIA in 2021 to work on her dissertation project, entitled “Identity Formation in Sacred Contexts of Aegean Thrace.”
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Alex Claman

Alex Claman’s research interests include landscape archaeology, archaeological theory, gendered landscapes, digital methods, and modern engagement with the past. They have participated in field survey projects on the Greek mainland, Sardinia, and the Cyclades, and excavated on Crete. They received a BA in Classical Studies from Carleton College in 2017, then earned an MA in Classics (specializing in Classical Archaeology) and an MS in Geography (with a certificate in GIS) from Texas Tech University in 2021. While at TTU, they completed their Master’s thesis, entitled “Toward a Morphic History of Landscape.” They started in the graduate program at UNC Chapel Hill in the fall of 2021. Alex completed their MA in Classical Archaeology at UNC Chapel Hill in the spring of 2023 and wrote a Master’s thesis entitled “The Coastscape of Hellenistic Halasarna, Kos.”
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Allison Davis

Allison Davis graduated with an A.B. degree in Classics and Archaeology from the College of Charleston in 2019. She received master’s degrees in Classical Studies from Tulane University in 2021 and Classics from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2023. Her thesis, titled “Reconsidering Continuity at Nichoria from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age,” explored archaeological material from the region of Messenia in Greece, where she has excavated since 2017. Her research interests lie in prehistoric Aegean archaeology with specific interests in the formation and structure of Late Bronze Age socio-political networks, interconnectivity across the Mediterranean, digital humanities, and geospatial modeling.
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Emily Dixon

Emily Dixon received a BA in Latin and Greek with a minor in Archaeology from the University of Richmond in 2023. She is currently working toward an MA in Classical Archaeology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has participated in fieldwork at historic sites in Virginia and a Roman villa site in Portugal. Her research interests are focused on Roman archaeology and material culture.
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Carolyn Dorey

Carolyn Dorey is a graduate student studying archaeology in the Classics Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She received an A.B. in Classics, History, and Archaeology at the College of Charleston before going on to receive her M.A. in Classics from Tulane University. Carolyn has worked with the Athenian Agora excavations, both excavating in the field and doing archival work. Her interests include ancient health and medicine, domestic life, and death and burial in Archaic and Classical Greece.

Morgan Eriksen

Bailey Hall

Bailey received her B.A. in Classical Studies (Classical Archaeology concentration) from the College of William and Mary in 2018 and went on to earn a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classical Studies from William and Mary in 2023. Prior to embarking on her Post-Baccalaureate coursework, she taught English as a Second Language in northern Thailand. ​She has participated in fieldwork at Segesta, Sicily, and most recently spent two consecutive seasons excavating at Ancient Messene. Bailey’s broad research interests include Greek architecture and urban development of the Archaic Period, specifically, examining the manifold ways in which the built environment and community shape one another via the articulation of collective memory and civic identity. She is also interested in Greek epigraphy and ritual theory.
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Emily Lime

Emily (MA in Classical Archaeology- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ’20, MA in Classical Art and Archaeology- University of Michigan ’17, BA in History, Classical Archaeology- University of Michigan ’16) is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from UNC-Chapel Hill. Emily’s work concerns the visual and material culture of the Ancient Roman world, with research interests in garden spaces, Roman wall painting, multimedia programming, and the remediation of Greek art in Roman visual culture. Her Master’s Thesis at UNC examined the remediation of sculptural elements into domestic garden paintings through the lens of Foucault’s heterotopia. Emily’s dissertation project, “After the Earthquake: Strategies of Remediation in Pompeiian Gardens (62 – 79 CE),” examines the environmental and aesthetic impacts of the 62 CE earthquake on Pompeian domestic gardens. Other research interests include Roman wall painting, the depiction of dogs in ancient art, the reuse and reworking of marble sculpture, and the reception of classical myth in Renaissance to contemporary art. She worked in the Finds Lab at the Gabii Project Roma for 5 years, and currently serves as Finds Registrar for the Casa della Regina Carolina Project at Pompeii.
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Bryanna Lloyd

Bryanna Lloyd is a graduate student studying archaeology in the Classics Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  She received her B.A. (Hons) in Classical Archaeology from King’s College London in 2014 and her M.A. in Archaeological Studies from Yale University in 2016, where she wrote her thesis on pXRF analysis of green glazed vessels from the Syro-Roman site of Dura Europos. Her M.A. thesis at UNC was titled “The House in Iron Age Italian Thought”. She has excavated at Pollena Trocchia in the Bay of Naples and the Etruscan city of Vulci. Bryanna is interested in museum education and curation and has worked as an intern at Yale University Art Gallery and the Ackland Art Museum.
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Email at: lloydbrATliveDOTuncDOTedu

Jackson Miller

Jackson received his B.A. in Classical Archaeology and French from the University of Texas in 2016 and an M.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020. His Master’s thesis, titled “Rethinking the Achilles at Skyros Myth: Two Representations from Pompeii,” reconsidered two visual assemblages to demonstrate how they helped highlight themes of tenderness, love, and loss in two depictions of Achilles. Jackson is beginning a dissertation which aims to consider how durational patterns of behavior contributed to the formation and growth of sanctuaries in central Greece and the Cyclades during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. Beyond that, he is interested in Greek colonization, the construction of masculinity in ancient Greece, and ritual feasting. He has excavated at Argilos, Azoria, and Despotiko in Greece.
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Email at: jnm2266ATliveDOTuncDOTedu

Cole Warlick

Cole Warlick is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Classics from UNC Chapel Hill. He received a B.A. in Classics and Anthropology from Davidson College in 2019. In 2021, he completed his Master’s Thesis at UNC on the reorganization of the property and the relationship between domestic space and productive horticulture in the House of the Ship Europa. Cole’s research interests center around social aspects and mechanisms of the economy, agriculture and horticulture, and identity and lived experience within the Roman Empire. He is also interested in museums and public engagement with archaeological heritage. He has worked as a fellow at the Ackland Art Museum and excavated in Cyprus and Southern Italy. Cole is very interested in the application of digital tools and data analysis in the study of the Ancient Mediterranean and currently works on the GIS and records database for the Casa della Regina Carolina Project at Pompeii.

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Elizabeth Wuellner

Elizabeth received her B.A. in Anthropology at San Diego State University before continuing on to receive her M.A. in Archaeological Studies at Yale University in 2022. Her Master’s thesis and published articles analyzed materials using archaeometric methods including XRF, DRIFTS, and Raman spectroscopy. She has excavated in California, Peru, Italy, and most recently at Doliche in south-eastern Turkey. Elizabeth is interested in the archaeology of the Roman provinces, especially in the eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on religious spaces and objects, Roman imperialism, and identity expression. 

Email: wuellnerATuncDOTedu

Philology

Ryan Baldwin

Ryan is a fifth-year PhD candidate in Classics (Historical Emphasis). He received his B.A. in History (2017) and his M.A. in Comparative Studies (2019) from Brigham Young University, and then earned a second M.A. in Classics (2021) from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he gave a historical reading of Pindar’s Olympian 1 for his MA thesis. Ryan’s dissertation focuses on Lucan’s use of Lucretian and Epicurean language in his Bellum Civile to highlight the fragility and eventual dissolution of the human body, politics, the world, and memory. He also works on intertextuality and intersections between Classical and early Christian language and literature, where he has analyzed and compared passion narratives with Achilles Tatius’ novel, Classical and Christian use of gender in Prudentius’ Peristephanon, and Proba’s use of Vergil’s Nisus and Euryalus in her cento. Other interests include “Silver Age” Latin, imperial literature, and violence in the ancient world.
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Nick Bolig

Nick received his B.A. in Latin and Business from Kalamazoo College in 2014. Upon graduating, Nick worked for two years as a high school Latin teacher in Detroit, Michigan. Nick went on to receive a Post-Baccalaureate certificate in Classics from the University of Pennsylvania (2017) and to receive an M.A. in Classics at the University of Kansas (2019) where he wrote his thesis, “Dramatizing the Divine: An Examination of Divination in Greek Tragedy and Euripides’ Helen.” He is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include ancient Greek drama, divination, historiography, and genre.
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Kyle graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 2019 with B.A.’s in Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies and International Politics. He thereafter pursued further study in Greek and Latin, first spending a year at Georgetown University in the Post-baccalaureate program, before moving to Burlington Vermont to receive a M.A. at the University of Vermont. He is currently pursuing his second M.A. and later PhD in Classical Philology (Historical Emphasis) at the University of North Carolina. His current research interests relate primarily to Greek and Roman historiography, in particular the narrative structure of Thucydides’ war.

Sarah Eisenlohr

Sarah received her B.A. in Latin & Ancient Greek from Kenyon College in 2015, and her M.A. from UNC – Chapel Hill in 2019. She is now a doctoral candidate at UNC, writing a dissertation on the portrayal of mythic women’s trauma in Ovidian poetry. Her wider area of research is gender and sexuality of the ancient Mediterranean–including sexual violence, representations of gender fluidity, second-stage warfare, sex labor, and marriage.
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Email at:sheisenATliveDOTuncDOTedu

Alexander Kiprof

Alex Kiprof received his B.A. in Classics and History from St. Olaf College in 2021.  He then received a M.A. in Classics from the University of Arizona in 2023.  His Master’s thesis investigated the intertextual relationship between the purported last words of Alexander the Great and the golden apple of Eris/Discord.  Amongst other intertextual readings, it argued that the analogy between Alexander and Eris presents the division of Alexander’s empire as a cyclical continuation of the Trojan War.  He is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Alex’s research interests include the productive interaction between Greco-Roman poetry and historiography, intertextuality, ancient Macedonian history, and Classical reception in Colonial America.
Curriculum Vitae
Email at: kiprof@unc.edu

Aidan Mahoney

Aidan received his B.A. in Classical Languages and Literature from the University of California–Davis in 2018. While at Davis, Aidan attended the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome during the fall semester of 2016. From Davis Aidan went on to complete his M.A. at the University of Kansas and received his degree in 2020. At Kansas, Aidan wrote his thesis entitled Exploring Gendered Violence from Tragic Episodes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He is now pursuing an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His interest include Augustan poetry, Roman elegy, gender and violence in Ovid’s poetry, and Greek tragedy.
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Email at: armahoneyATuncDOTedu

Sean Moorman

Until 2016, Sean attended the College of Charleston, where he earned his A.B. in Classics and his B.A. in History. As an undergraduate, he focused largely on the political and social history of Russia and the Soviet Union in addition to Greek, Latin, and ancient history courses. Before pursuing a Ph.D. in Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he earned an M.A. degree in Classics at the University of Maryland in 2020. His interests mainly lie in Greek and Roman historiography, specifically Thucydides’ and Sallust’s critical reflections on empire and political elites. More recently, he has become interested in Seneca’s tragedies and their relationship to his own philosophical concepts in De Ira and De Clementia.
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Email to: seanallaATemailDOTuncDOTedu

Elizabeth Needham

S. Elizabeth Needham received her B.A. in Classical Languages and in German cum laude from Duke University in 2019, where she wrote a senior honors thesis on the relationship between plants and power in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In 2021 she completed her M.A. here at UNC with a thesis titled “Here and Now and Then and There: The Construction of Imagined Space in Sappho.” Her research interests include Greek melic poetry and performance, Augustan poetry, gender and sexuality in antiquity, and human interactions with the natural world in literature.
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Email: sen15ATliveDOTuncDOTedu

Matthew Sherry

Matthew Sherry is a Ph.D. candidate in Classics at UNC-Chapel Hill. He graduated with a B.A. in Latin from Wake Forest University in 2013. After graduation, he taught high school Latin for two years in Lynchburg, VA. He then studied Classics for two years at Georgetown University as a post-baccalaureate student. In 2019, he completed his M.A. at UNC with a thesis analyzing the role of Cupid in Apuleius’ “Cupid and Psyche,” arguing that, during the tale, Cupid evolves from sexual passion into a more wholesome, unconditional love. His dissertation, “Seeking Solace in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid,” explores the efficacy of metapoetic depictions in Vergil’s poetry. He presents Vergil’s ambivalence toward Augustus as competing political and generic goals that undercut the efficacy of poetry within the fiction of the text. Matthew’s research interests lie primarily in Augustan poetry, especially Vergil, and he focuses on poetic allusion, metapoetics, and the blending of generic conventions.
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Valerie Sydorenko

Val is currently pursuing her MA in Classics at UNC Chapel Hill as of Fall 2021. She graduated with a BA in Classical Languages and Literature and a Certificate in Linguistics from Temple University (2018). She went on to complete a Post-Baccalaureate in Classical Languages from University of Pennsylvania (2020), where she worked with the Kislak collection of rare books and manuscripts and became interested in digital humanities and its potential applicability in classics. She is fascinated by ancient depictions of Hekate as a seemingly ubiquitous yet mysterious figure and the rituals surrounding her. Val’s other professional interests include, among others, Augustan poetry, Greek tragedy, gender and sexuality, and ancient attitudes towards domesticated and near-wild animals.
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Ashley Walker

Ashley Walker received her BA in Classics and English Literature from Lee University in 2020, where she wrote a senior thesis on epigraphs from classical literature in T. S. Eliot’s poetry. She then completed her MA in Classics at the University of Notre Dame in 2022. Her MA thesis, titled “Using, Refusing, and Becoming Exempla: Debating Exemplarity in Heroides 5 and 16-17,” examined a shared discourse about the use of exempla in Paris, Helen, and Oenone’s letters of Ovid’s Heroides. Ashley’s research interests include Greek and Latin poetry (especially Augustan poetry, lyric, and elegy), genre, gender, and inter/intratextuality.
Email: awalker3ATuncDOTedu
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Robert Ward

Robert Ward graduated from the University of Kansas in 2023 with a BA in Classical Languages, Classical Antiquity, and English. He wrote a senior thesis on the intertextual relationships between Horace and Propertius’ later works of poetry. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Robert’s research interests include Latin poetry, its intertextuality with Greek poetry, and literary theory especially in its use within philology.
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