Department of Egyptology and Assyriology

Graduate Students

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    Marc Chapuis

    Marc Chapuis is a PhD student in History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity. After learning Latin and Ancient Greek while writing his PhD in mathematics at the University Paris VI (defended in 2017), he got degrees in Indian Studies at Paris III (where he learned Sanskrit and Prakrit) and in Chinese Studies at the INALCO. His interests include ancient astronomy and mathematics, religious studies, and social history throughout the pre-modern world with a particular focus on Tang Dynasty China.

  • Portrait of May Pwint Thair Chu

    May Chu

    May is a PhD student in Egyptology. She earned her MPhil in Egyptian Archaeology from the University of Cambridge and BA (Hons.) in Art History from Roanoke College, VA. She has been working as a ceramicist in Kom el-Hisn Provincialism Project and Abydos North Project in Egypt. May has also excavated in Egypt, Romania, Cambodia and Myanmar. Her research interests include the formation of the ancient Egyptian civilization, the livelihood of non elite ancient Egyptians, kingship, and the relationship between religion and politics. In addition, May is interested in exploring various digital technologies that can enhance the archaeological process. 

  • Christopher Cox

    Christopher Cox

    Christopher is a PhD student in Egyptology.  He graduated summa cum laude with honors in both History and Classics from Whitman College in 2018. His thesis argued that anti-black racism existed in the ancient Greco-Roman world and is connected to racism found in the West during and after the Transatlantic Slave Trade. His research interests include ethnicity and race in ancient Egypt and reframing ancient Egypt as an ancient African civilization.

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    Johanna Garzon

    Johanna Garzon is a Ph.D. student in History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity. Johanna pursued studies in both Astronomy and Literature at the National University of La Plata and graduated in 2021 with a thesis on mythology in Aratus' Phenomena which led to a number of publications. As she was pursuing her studies, Johanna was involved in numerous projects linked to her interests in the intersection of Science, Language, History, and Culture through which she could serve her broader communities. Johanna participated in Anthropological work in the Gran Chaco, trained instructors in the vulgarization of astronomy, and served as a member of the Department of Hellenistic Studies in La Plata. Now at Brown, Johanna plans to pursue work engaging her interests in the development of astronomy during the early Hellenistic period.

  • Portrait of Margaret Greene

    Margaret Greene

    Margaret is a PhD student in Egyptology. She earned her BA in Art History and Classics from Emory University. During her studies, she also had the opportunity to excavate at Samothrace, GR. Margaret is primarily interested in how historiographical examination of 19th and 20th century Egyptological scholarship can inform our understandings of material culture, both in an archaeological context and also in the museum.  

  • Portrait of Adrianna Layne

    Adrianna Layne

    Adrianna is a PhD student in Egyptology. She earned her MA in Middle Eastern Studies with a concentration in Egyptology from the University of Chicago in 2023. She also obtained her BA from UChicago in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Anthropology in 2022. Adrianna worked as a Museum Educator at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) teaching lessons about and leading tours through the ancient world. Adrianna’s research interests include diachronic studies of Egyptian religion and magic using both written and material culture.
     

  • Erica Meszaros

    Erica Meszaros

    Erica is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity. She earned an M.A. in Social Science with a History of Science focus from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in Linguistics and Graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence from Eastern Michigan University, and a B.A. in Classical Languages from the College of Wooster. Her current research project focuses on Babylonian astronomical procedures and the place of algorithms in ancient science. Her goal is to interrogate the language that current scholars use to interpret Mesopotamian astronomy while using this modern scaffolding to highlight the very human authors behind scientific procedures. In her downtime, she enjoys escape rooms and training for the circus.

  • Jonathan Price

    Jonathan Price

    Jonathan is a 5th year PhD student in Assyriology. He is a 2019 graduate of Grove City College, where he majored in History and had the opportunity to participate in archeological conservation projects in Sardinia and central Italy. His chief area of interest is first millennium BC Mesopotamia, particularly the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. He is currently writing his dissertation on historical memory and the uses of the past in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, but he is also interested in the relationship between Mesopotamian scholarly communities and imperial administration, wisdom literature, ancient warfare, interconnections between Mesopotamia and the Biblical and classical worlds, and the later reception of Mesopotamia by historians, theologians, and travelers in Europe and the Middle East. 

  • Rafa Saade

    J. Rafael Saade

    Rafa is a Ph.D. candidate in Egyptology. He holds an M.A. degree in Egyptology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and an M.Sc. degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Navarra. His M.A. thesis focused on how the Demotic tales of Setne Khaemwaset reflect the Egyptians’ perception of their own relationship with the divine world. His research interests center on how the cultural contacts between Egypt and other ancient Near Eastern civilizations during the second half of the first century BCE transcended into the ideological and literary spheres.

    Rafa’s dissertation will analyze a Demotic historiographic text —the so-called "Demotic Chronicle"— and investigate its modes and methods of constructing an image of the past. On a second step, the literary characteristics and compositional strategies of this text will be compared to exemplary historiographic-narrative and apocalyptic works in the Hebrew Bible from the Second Temple period (such as the work of the Chronicler and the Book of Daniel). Rafa’s work is part of the ERC-funded project: From Texts to Literature: Demotic Egyptian Papyri and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible (DEMBIB), hosted at the Humboldt University of Berlin.