CONGRATULATIONS TO CLASSICAL STUDIES STUDENTS, STAFF, AND FACULTY
FOR 2018–2019 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
2019 Classical Studies Senior Prizes and Translation Prizes
Paula Babula won the Future Latin Teacher Senior Prize.
Shannon Burton won a Contexts for Classics Translation Award.
Isabella Hughey Buzynski won a Phillips Classical Translation Prize.
Hebe Clark won the Classical Archaeology Senior Prize.
Catharine Fennessey won a Phillips Classical Translation Prize.
Peter Georginis won a Modern Greek Translation Prize at the advanced intermediate level.
Thomas Knight won a Phillips Classical Translation Prize.
Lisa Levin won a Contexts for Classics Translation Award.
Scott Morton won a Phillips Classical Translation Prize.
Collin Parks won a Phillips Classical Translation Prize.
Nilay Patel won the Classical Civilization Senior Prize.
Anthony Struthers-Young won the Classical Linguistics Senior Prize.
Liliana Talwatte won the Seligson Prize Awarded in memory of Gerda M. Seligson recognizing the undergraduate senior who excels in the study of Classical Greek.
Maria Thanasas won a Modern Greek Translation Prize at the intermediate level.
Christina Triantafillopoulos Panagoulia won the Calliopi Papala Politou Senior Prize in Modern Greek.
Class of 2019 Graduating MA Students
Amy Barker, MA, Latin
Paige DeRue, MA, Classical Art and Archaeology
Jennifer Moss, MA, Latin
Ariel Regner, MA, Classical Art and Archaeology
Jill Simmons, MA, Classical Studies
Class of 2019 Graduating PhD Students
Classical Languages and Literatures
Tyler Mayo, “Research and Experiment in Early Greek Thought,” Committee Chair: Francesca Schironi
David Ryan Morphew, “Passionate Platonism: Plutarch on the Positive Role of Non-Rational Affects in the Good Life,” Committee Chair: Victor Caston
Interdepartmental Program in Greek & Roman History
Allison J. Kemmerle, “The Performance of Identity in Classical Athens,” Committee Chair: Sara Forsdyke
Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art & Archaeology
Elina Salminen, “Society and Burials from Central-Western Macedon, 550-300 BCE: Intersections of Gender, Age, and Status,” Committee Chair: Lisa Nevett
Emma Margaret Sachs, “Style and Variety in the Art of the Roman Domestic Sphere,” Committee Chair: Elaine K. Gazda
2018-2019 Staff Award
Michelle Biggs was honored by the department for her 27 years’ service with a “Biggs Bash” detailing and celebrating her contribution.
Jeff Craft was the 2018-2019 winner of the Candace J. Johnson Award for Staff Excellence. This award goes to just one staff member each year. The nomination, which came from both Classics and History of Art, featured his strategic thinking, knowledge of the college, deep understanding of budgets and finances, and attention to graduate support.
2018-2019 Graduate Student Accomplishments
Leah Bernardo-Ciddio received a Rackham Conference Travel Grant and a Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant.
Katherine Beydler was appointed Junior Fellow in the Sweetland Fellows Seminar for the Winter 2019-Fall 2019 semesters.
Drew Cabaniss won a Rackham International Research Award for his project, “Household Decisions and Community Uniqueness in the Classical Aegean.”
Caitlin Clerken received an African Studies Center (ASC) Student Research Support in Africa award for work at El-Kurru, Sudan and was accepted in this summer’s CCL/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice.
Alexandra Creola was awarded a Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant and a Rackham Conference Travel Grant.
Anna Cornel was appointed Junior Fellow in the Sweetland Fellows Seminar for the Winter 2020–Fall 2020 semesters and won a Contexts for Classics Translation Award.
Machal Gradoz has been awarded a Rackham Conference Travel Grant.
Brittany Hardy received a Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant.
James Faulkner received a Rackham Conference Travel Grant.
David Morphew won a Proquest Distinguished Dissertation Award.
Matt Naglak was awarded a 2019–2020 Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. He also received the Honored Instructor Award from University of Michigan Housing. This award recognizes instructors who have had a positive impact on their students’ lives and academic career. He received a Rackham Public Engagement Fellowship to work at the University of Michigan's digital press (Fulcrum) this summer.
Shannon Ness was selected for the Fall 2019 cohort of the Engaged Pedagogy Initiative (EPI), a semester-long community-based learning (CBL) graduate training program.
Edward Nolan was a student librarian in the Classics department library this year.
Malia Piper was accepted into the Sweetland Writing Dissertation Writing Institute for Spring 2019.
Elina Salminen won a Proquest Dissertation Honorable Mention.
Robert Santucci Received a Rackham Conference Travel Grant. He also won a Contexts for Classics Translation Award.
Stephen Shiflett received a Rackham Student Research Grant.
Megan Wilson won a Contexts for Classics Translation Award.
Michael Woo received a Rackham Conference Travel Grant.
Parrish Wright just won both the Rome Prize and a Fulbright for her dissertation work, “Competing Narratives of Identity and Urbanism in Central and Southern Italy, 750 BCE–100 BCE.” She also received the Sidney Fine Teaching Partnership grant with Anna Bonnell Freidin (Department of History) to develop two new courses, and a Center for European Studies Summer Research Grant for this summer 2019.
2018-2019 Graduate Student Alumni Accomplishments
Dan Diffendale (PhD 2018), Research Fellow in the Department of Ancient Mediterranean Studies at the University of Missouri, won the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Rome Prize for his work, “Quarry provenance and Archaeological Dating of the Roman-Area Tuffs in Antiquity (QUADRATA).”
2018-2019 Faculty Accomplishments
Susan Alcock was appointed UM Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor at UM-Flint.
Natalie Abell spent the year at work on her research supported by an ACLS fellowship. She also received a UMOR Small Scale and Preliminary Projects award for her project, Makers, Maritime Networks, and Markets in the Bronze Age Cyclades (Greece).
Sara Ahbel-Rappe was elected by the Senate Assembly to a three-year term to the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs. She received with Carrie Wood a CRLT Whitaker Grant for activities that enhance the quality of student learning in Great Books. She will be a fellow of the Princeton University Humanities Council in winter 2020.
Netta Berlin coordinated the senior Honors Thesis writers and oversaw our department’s Transfer Student Mentor.
Ruth Caston served as Director of Undergraduate Studies and put in place our department’s undergraduate assessment process.
Aileen Das was awarded a fellowship in Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. for Fall 2019 to start work on her second monograph, a project on time and epitomatory literature in medieval Islamicate medicine. She received a MCube grant with three colleagues from Romance Language (Ryan Szpiech), Judaic Studies (Rebecca Wollenberg), and Middle East Studies (Adi Raz) collaborating on “Remapping Peoples of the Book: Theorizing ‘Abrahamic’ Vernaculars.”
Basil Dufallo served as Director of Graduate Studies and organized the “Comparing Roman Hellenisms” conference.
Ian Fielding was awarded a Loeb Foundation Fellowship covering winter 2020 for his project on the reception of Juvenal. He was also named Faculty Outreach Ambassador by the Center for Educational Outreach.
Sara Forsdyke chaired the DEI committee, was the Faculty Diversity Ally, and won a Rackham Faculty Diversity Ally Grant for the department.
Ben Fortson won a LSA Michigan Humanities Award to extend his sabbatical leave through the 2019–2020 academic year and allow him to dig deeper into his translation and commentary on the “Festus lexicon.”
Linda Gosner received a second Loeb Classical Library Fellowship to continue with the Sinis Archaeological Project in Sardinia.
Brendan Haug organized the Papyrologies Past, Present workshop. He was featured in an extensive Detroit Bookfest “Exclusive interview: University of Michigan’s Papyrology Collection” (April 5, 2019).
Sharon Herbert delivered her University Distinguished Faculty lecture and was recently selected president of ASOR (American Schools of Oriental Research) for 2020–2023.
Richard Janko won a ACLS Fellowship for the Winter 2020 semester.
Artemis Leontis was named C. P. Cavafy Professor of Modern Greek Studies and Comparative Literature. Her book, Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins, was published in by Princeton University Press (2019).
Despina Margomenou, was Senior Fellow in the Sweetland Fellows Seminar for Winter 2019. Serving also on the DEI committee, she engaged the Black and Brown theatre to perform “Unraveling Oedipus” and lead a community discussion to commemorate MLK day.
Donka Markus published Reading Medieval Latin with the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat (2018), a textbook for intermediate students of Medieval Latin.
Laura Motta received a Loeb fellowship with Andrea Brock for the Forum Boarium coring survey. Additionally, she received funding with Paul Erdkamp (VUBrussels) from the Flemish Research Council for bio-molecular and DNA analysis of ancient crops stored in the Kelsey Museum collections.
Lisa Nevett is the Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Classical Archaeology and Art History.
David Potter published the third, revised edition of Ancient Rome: A New History (Thames and Hudson 2018) and The Origin of Empire: Rome from the Republic to Hadrian (Harvard 2019). He is Secretary of the UM Faculty Senate.
Zachary Quint was appointed Classics Librarian in Hatcher Graduate Library.
Chris Ratté, director of the Collaborative Notion Archaeological Research Project, received full funding from the NEH. He was also awarded and accepted the position of Whitehead Distinguished Scholar at the American School of Classical Studies for 2019–2020.
Debbie Ross was a 2019 recipient of an American Classical League Merita Award, recognizing her sustained and distinguished service to Classics and to the ACL.
Francesca Schironi published The Best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad (2018). She won a NSF Collaborative Research Grant for “The Aratus Project: Astronomy and scientific writing between Aratus, Hipparchus and Aratus’ Commentators.”
Celia Schultz was elected Secretary of the Advisory Council of the AAR. She serves on the DEC and is the Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Greek and Roman History. The 7th edition of A History of the Roman People, which she co-edited Allen Ward, appeared in April 2019.
Ruth Scodel was awarded the Distinguished Lifetime Service Award, given to her by the APA / SCS in recognition of her lifetime dedication and contributions to the field of Classics.
Gina Soter received a CGIS GCC (Center for Global and International Study Global Course Connections) grant for taking students to Italy in 2020.
David Stone won a Lecturers’ Professional Development Fund and Delmas Humanities Grant, both in 2018.
Nic Terrenato’s book The Early Roman Expansion into Italy: Elite Negotiation and Family Agendas was published by Cambridge University Press (2019).
Arthur Verhoogt received the UM Press Book Award for his book, Discarded, Discovered, Collected, The University of Michigan Papyrus Collection and co-edited with W. Graham Claytor Papyri from Karanis: The Granary C123 (2018). He is Rackham Graduate School Associate Dean for Humanities and the Arts.
Carrie Wood, winner of the first Don Cameron Honors Teaching Award in 2018, received with Sara Ahbel-Rappe a CRLT Whitaker Grant for activities that enhance the quality of student learning in Great Books.
