Graduate Students
Graduate Students
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. 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. Email: wuellnerATuncDOTedu 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. India received her B.A. in Classics, writing an honors thesis on insults in Roman comedy, with a concentration in Global Literary Studies from Davidson College in 2015. She spent a year in Trier, Germany further studying Roman comedy under a Fulbright research grant from 2015-2016. In the spring of 2018, she completed her M.A. in Latin with a thesis examining the use of satiare and its association with sex and slaughter in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Classics with a dissertation on the interpretability of the male body in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Petronius’ Satyricon, and Senecan drama. Her research interests include theory of the body and its applications to Greek and Latin literature, intertextuality in imperial Latin poetry, and Roman comedy. 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.
Archaeology
Philology
Archaeology
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.
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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 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.” He has participated in field survey projects on the Greek mainland, Sardinia, and the Cyclades. Alex’s research interests include landscape archaeology, archaeological methodology and theory, and modern engagement with the past(s).
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Allison Davis graduated with an A.B. degree in Classics and Archaeology from the College of Charleston in 2019 and received her Master’s degree in Classical Studies from Tulane University in 2021. Her Master’s work culminated into two qualifying papers, “Survey of Proto- and Neopalatial Fruitstands from Knossos” and “Mother, Goddess, and Wet Nurse: Female Status in Roman Breastfeeding Iconography.” 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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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.
Rebecca received dual B.A.’s (summa cum laude) in Classical Archaeology and Anthropology from the College of William and Mary in 2019, where she completed an honors thesis exploring the social function of nature imagery depicted in Pompeian wall-paintings (awarded Highest Honors). In 2022, she earned her M.A. in Classical Archaeology at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her M.A. thesis argues that the owners of the House of the Vestals, Pompeii, manipulated sound in their domestic space to cultivate a pleasurable, status-boosting sensory escape embedded within the urban fabric of the city. She is now pursuing her Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology. Rebecca’s primary interests are Roman visual and material culture, particularly Roman houses and their gardens through the lenses of their décor, internal spatial relationships, and potentiality for investigating embodied experience. She has excavated most recently as a trench supervisor at the Casa della Regina Carolina at Pompeii, Italy.
Curriculum Vitae
Email to: rmgabATemailDOTuncDOTedu
Melanie (M.A. in Classics – University of Colorado Boulder, B.A. Classical Archaeology and Latin – Florida State University) is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology. She is writing a dissertation on the archaeological evidence for the socioeconomic effects of Ptolemaic military and economic activities in Greece. Her research interests include the material culture of the Hellenistic world, ancient economies, ceramics, and cross-cultural interaction. She was the Heinrich Schliemann Fellow (2019-2020) and the Homer A. and Dorothy B. Thompson Fellow (2020-2021) at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. In 2017 she completed an M.A. in Classics at UNC Chapel Hill with a thesis titled “The Ptolemies and the 3rd century BCE Ceramic Assemblage.” She most recently worked as a ceramicist for the Bays of East Attica Regional Survey, on excavations at Pyla-Vigla in Cyprus, and a team leader on the Western Argolid Regional Project.
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Sarah Hilker is a PhD candidate currently working on her dissertation, which examines the relationship between Mycenaean residential spaces, social structure, and settlement patterns. In addition to the Bronze Age Aegean, her broader interests include ancient technology and craft production, ancient trade, archaeological science, and digital humanities. Sarah has a B.A. in Classics from the University of Pennsylvania (2010), a M.Sc. in the Technology and Analysis of Archaeological Materials from University College London (2012, dissertation on Mesopotamian Polychromy), and a M.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2014, thesis on Aegean Bronze Age wall paintings). She has served as a trench supervisor at several sites in Greece (Thorikos, Iklaina, Ancient Corinth, Azoria) and excavated in Italy (Morgantina, Cinigiano). She has also spent time at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, first participating in the Regular Program (2017-2018, Emily Townsend Vermeule Fellow), and then returning to conduct dissertation research (2019-2020 as a Fulbright Student Fellow; 2020-2021).
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Email at: slhilkerATliveDOTuncDOTedu
Emily Lime
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 concerns the extensive renovation and reorganization of domestic space in Pompeii following the earthquake of 62 CE, with a focus on the expansion and incorporation of interior garden spaces.
Other research interests include domestic renovations, 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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Email at: lloydbrATliveDOTuncDOTedu
Katelin received her B.A. in Classical Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and her M.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her Master’s Thesis, entitled The Inclusion and Negotiation of the Appropriate Female Presence in Public: Thamugadi and Cuicul discussed the specific economic context of the North African region and its impact on how women were included within public spaces according to distinctly local patterns. For her dissertation, Katelin’s research focuses on the sculpture and associated epigraphic monuments set up by and for local women in Cyrene from the Hellenistic period to the 3rd century CE. Her work considers the evidence for female representation as assemblages tied to specific spaces within the city and examines how their monuments are integrated into broader urban landscapes physically and with regard to their social functions. More broadly, Katelin is interested in the archaeology of the Roman provinces. Her interests include identity studies, gender studies, small finds, and urban development. She has participated in excavations in Belize, Italy, Romania, Israel, Spain, and is currently working on a survey and excavation project in Morocco.
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Email at: kdm956ATliveDOTuncDOTedu
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
Katie received her B.A. in Classics, Anthropology, and International Relations from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to beginning at UNC in 2014, she earned a Post-Baccalaureate certificate in Latin and Ancient Greek from UCLA. She received her M.A in Classical Archaeology from this department in 2016, and is currently working on her PhD dissertation entitled: Feeding Tarraco: A Zooarchaeological Approach to the Economy of Roman Spain. Katie is primarily interested in the archaeology of the Roman provinces with special interests in the zooarchaeological analysis of foodways, trade, and ritual, as well as city landscapes and architecture. She also studies women and gender in the ancient world and day-to-day life within the Roman Empire.
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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 and relationship between domestic space and productive horticulture in the House of the Ship Europa. Cole’s research interests center around social aspects of the economy, cultural contact, identity, mobility, 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. 
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. Philology
Ryan is a third-year PhD student in Classics (Historical Emphasis). He received his B.A. in History (2017) and his M.A. in Comparative Studies (2019) from Brigham Young University. He 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 work focuses mainly 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 cento with Vergil’s Aeneid. Other interests include “Silver Age” Latin, imperial literature, and violence in the ancient world.
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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 in 2017 and has just completed an M.A. program at the University of Kansas (May 2019) where he wrote his thesis, “Dramatizing the Divine: An Examination of Divination in Greek Tragedy and Euripides’ Helen.” He is now pursuing an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His current interests include ancient Greek drama, divination, religion, and historiography.
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Olivia DuCharme
Olivia DuCharme received her B.A. in Greek and Roman Studies and English (Creative Writing) from Rhodes College in 2022. Her honors thesis, “A Storm within Skin: The Transformative Potential of the Tiresian Archetype,” considered the archetypal violent treatment of Tiresias in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Callimachus’ On the Bath of Pallas and its reception in T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” Olivia is now pursuing her M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include Greek and Latin poetry and its reception in twentieth and twenty-first century literature, with an eye to archetypes, gender, genre, intertextuality, and seers.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:sheisenATliveDOTuncDOTeduDavid Harris
David is a first-year PhD candidate at UNC Chapel Hill. He received his BA in Classical Languages from Trinity University (San Antonio, TX) in 2015, where he wrote a senior thesis, “City-Foundation in Vergil’s Aeneid,” under the guidance of Dr. Tim O’Sullivan. He has just completed his MA in Classics at Washington University in St. Louis. His Master’s thesis, “Dreams, Visions, and their Interpretation in Lucan’s Pharsalia,” advised by Cathy Keane, examines the device of the prophetic dream in Lucan from both literary and historiographical perspectives, and argues that the increasing non-reliability of dreams in the epic points out a tendency (in part by historians) to employ dreams to modify their historical narrative and indicates a deeper problem of the impossibility of grasping historical truth. David’s research interests involve the articulation and definition of cultural (especially Roman) identity as seen in works of literature, reception and allusion, and the development of generic traditions, with a focus on Imperial and Augustan poetry and prose.
Curriculum VitaeAidan 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: armahoneyATuncDOTeduSean 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
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Email: indiawatATliveDOTuncDOTedu 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: sen15ATliveDOTuncDOTeduMatthew 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.
Curriculum VitaeValerie 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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Email: awalker3ATuncDOTedu
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