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Achievements from Students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

View our latest newsletter and read more about Faculty, Student, and Alumni Achievements from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Archaeology

Katie Breyer and Yusi Liu presented research at the 2020 University of Colorado, Boulder, Classics Graduate Colloquium conference �پ��ٱ����  . Yusi Liu presented her ongoing research into the Peirene Fountain at the ancient Greek city of Corinth with a paper entitled “Making a Space a Place: Eco-Cultural Readings of the Peirene Fountain at Ancient Corinth.” Katie’s talk “Expressions of Roman and Sasanian Legitimacy through their Political Landscapes” was a comparative study of political architecture of the Sasanian king  Šāpūr I and the Roman emperor Galerius.

Tracey Cian successfully completed her M.A. degree in Near Eastern and Classical Archaeology. Tracey helped organize this year's C. Densmore Curtis Lecture which took place on the weekend of October 25-26 with Prof Zainab Bahrani from Columbia University who presented on "Mapping Time at the Amadiya Akropolis." In November, she attended the annual ASOR (American Schools for Oriental Research) meeting in San Diego.

Shannon Dunn completed a year at the American School for Classical Studies in Athens as a Regular Member. Her paper "Saronic Poseidon: Sanctuary Landscapes and Cult Practices in a Maritime Neighborhood" was accepted to the conference  in Malta (originally June 2020, postponed due to Covid-19).

Matthew Jameson was awarded best student poster at the Seminar for Arabian Studies held at Leiden University, Netherlands from July 11-13, with a poster entitled:  "Imperial Encounters in the Gulf during the Late Pre-Islamic Period: The Parthian Glazed Pottery from Southeastern Arabia.” In August, Matthew attended a workshop on Islamic Archaeology in the Near East at Princeton University, New Jersey.

From October 26-November 11, Matthew traveled to Sharjah, UAE, to conduct geochemical analysis using pXRF on pottery included in his dissertation. Along with Elena Gittleman, Matt co-chaired the exhibition committee for the Fall 2019 Graduate Symposium Exhibition entitled: The Illuminated Night, which opened November 14 in Special Collections suite, 2^nd Floor Canaday Library. In late November, Matthew presented a paper entitled:  "Imperial" Encounters in the Arabian Gulf during the Late Pre-Islamic Period: The Glazed Pottery from Building H at Mleiha at the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) annual meeting in San Diego, California. In Spring, Matthew was teaching assistant to Professor Astrid Lindenlauf.

Andrea Samz-Pustol returned from the American School for Classical Studies in Athens where she was an Associate Member for the 2018-2019 academic year. Andrea worked at three archaeological excavations in 2019.  She co-supervised a trench in ancient Corinth in Greece, worked at a Punic-Roman city called Tharros on Sardinia, and supervised several trenches of a Hellenistic house in central Sicily.

Zach Silvia co-chaired the 12^th Biennial �Ӱ�ԭ��Ӱ�� Graduate Group Symposium Irresistible Night, Ageless Dark: the nocturnal in image, text, and material culture on November 15-16. He presented his paper “Bel-Marduk’s Celestial Dais: the importance of lapis lazuli in Mesopotamian cosmic order” at this same conference. In November he gave the talk “Hellenism in Bactria and Sogdiana: a view from the rural hinterland” at the American Schools for Oriental Research (ASOR) annual meeting in San Diego, California. In October he gave an invited lecture for Professor Jae Shi’s class Topics in Chinese Art: material perspectives on the Silk Road with the talk “Bashtepa and Beyond: excavating Hellenistic sites in rural Central Asia.” Zach also served as a teaching assistant to Professor Jennie Bradbury’s class Introduction to Near Eastern and Egyptian Archaeology, in which he gave the Halloween guest lecture “Magic, Witches, and Demons in Ancient Mesopotamia.”In March, Zach took part in the American School for Classical Studies in Athens archaeological tour of Crete. This Fall he will give the talk “Interpreting Rural Indigenous Architecture in Hellenistic Bactria and Sogdiana” at the 4^th Hellenistic Central Asia Research Conference at University of Freiburg in Germany and the American Schools for Oriental Research Meeting in Boston, MA.

Chemistry

Cassandra Gates and Emma Allen had posters accepted to the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia (postponed). Cassandra’s poster is titled “Protonation-induced redox reactivity in synthetic models of the mononuclear molybdenum cofactor.” Emma’s poster is titled “Making a Model for the Molybdenum Cofactor and Investigating Its Reaction Chemistry.”

Classics

Dan Crosby presented a paper entitled “The ‘New Song’ of Eunomos: Dragons and Materiality in the  Protrepticus  of Clement of Alexandria,”at the International Conference on Patristic Studies held the University of Oxford on August 20. The conference proceedings are under review for a forthcoming volume of Studia Patristica. Dan published His chapter “Remembering Quinctilius Varus: Opposing Perspectives on the Memory and Memorialization of the Failed General in the  Annales of Tacitus,” in  The Art of Generalship in Ancient Greece, Rome & Byzantium, edited by Richard Evans and Shaun Tougher is forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press this year. Dan also completed indexing for Catherine Conybeare and Simon Goldhill’s  Classical Philology and Theology: Entanglement, Disavowel, and the Godlike Scholar, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

Jenni Glaser taught Greek at a program titled Biduum Graecum in May. In June she presented a paper titled “Dum fit Miser: Sorrow and Fear in Seneca’s  Thyestes” at the Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies at St. Louis University. She taught a Latin I intensive course for the Polis Institute in July in Rome. In November she presented a paper titled “Walking on Air and Scorning the Moon: Aerial Encounters in Aristophanes’ Clouds  and Lucian’s  Icaromenippus” at the Bryn Mawr Graduate Student Symposium, as well as co-curating the exhibition, The Illuminated Night,  for the Symposium.

Collin Hilton successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation, “Plutarch Reading Plato: Interpretation and Mythmaking in the Early Empire,” on December 12. Collin also presented the paper“Roman Stoic Appropriation of the Middle Platonic ‘Imitation of God’” in the panel  Plato and His Reception at the Archaeological Institute of America and Society for Classical Studies Joint Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. in early January.

Audrey Wallace co-chaired the 12^th Biennial �Ӱ�ԭ��Ӱ�� Graduate Group Symposium Irresistible Night, Ageless Dark: the nocturnal in image, text, and material culture on November 15-16. She presented the paper "Seeking Justice in Plato's  Gorgias" at the 3^rd University of Florida Classics Graduate Student Symposium entitled "Justice Turns the Balance Scale" on October 26. Audrey paper entitled "Briseis’ New Form: Rewriting in Ovid’s Heroides 3" was accepted to the Feminism & Classics VIII conference at Wake Forest University.

History of Art

Nina Blomfield curated the exhibition All-Over Design: Lockwood de Forest between Ahmedabad and Bryn Mawr, on view in Canaday Library’s Rare Book Room from October 24 until March 1. In conjunction with the exhibition, Nina led Friday Finds programs including a tour of Lockwood de Forest’s work on the Bryn Mawr campus, and an in-depth Object Study session presented with Katie Loney, University of Pittsburgh. Katie and Nina led a joint presentation entitled “'India in America:' A Curatorial Conversation on the Work and Practice of Lockwood de Forest and Ahmedabad Wood Carving Company” at the University of Pittsburgh on October 3. Their conversation will be published in a forthcoming edition of Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture on the subject “Moving Across/Through Cultures.”

Elena Gittleman co-chaired the 12th Biennial �Ӱ�ԭ��Ӱ�� Graduate Group Symposium Irresistible Night, Ageless Dark: the nocturnal in image, text, and material culture on November 15-16. Additionally, Elena presented her research, “Holy Actors: Christian Learning and the Ancient Theater in the Menologion of Basil II” at the second at the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, UK). The PAIXUE international Symposium explores how public performances of classicizing learning (however defined in each culture) influenced and served imperial or state power in premodern political systems across Eurasia and North Africa, with a focus on Byzantium and Tang/Song China. Elena was one of thirty-one scholars––and the only graduate student––invited to speak at the three-day Symposium.

Justinne Lake-Jedzinak defended her doctoral dissertation titled “Reframing Femininity: Collecting Pictures of Early Christian Martyrs in Seicento Naples.” In addition, Justinne chaired a panel at SECAC 2019 on "Holiness, Virginity, and Martyrdom: Female Bodies and Sanctity in Early Modern Europe" and presented a paper within that panel entitled "Piety, Politics, and the Popish Plot: Catherine of Braganza as  Saint Catherine of Alexandria".

Laurel McLaughlin conducted extensive interviews with artists and curators in 2019. Her article “ "was published in Performance Research, Vol. 25, No. 1, “Dark Ecologies.” “” was published in Art Papers in December. For the Institute of Contemporary Art’s I is for Institute project, Laurel interviewed and . Laurel published conversations in Title Magazine with Philadelphia-based artist , as well as the . She reviewed “”& for Art Practical and ’s exhibition A Frayed Not and accompanying performance AFRAID NOT for Performa Magazine. In September, Laurel published a series of conversations with , , , , and and a review entitled “” for the PICA Blog of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.

Laurel also presented the paper “Towards a Historical ‘Performing With’ in the Early Works of Spiderwoman Theater and Urban Bush Women,” at Performance Studies International 25, held at the University of Calgary, as well as a paper entitled “Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Barren Cave Mute: Alchemical Migrations,” at the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, Tai Kwun Centre for Arts & Heritage and the University of Hong Kong.

Michelle Smiley successfully defended her doctoral dissertation “’An American Sun Shines Brighter’. Art, Science, and the American Reinvention of Photography.”Recently, Michelle finished a two-year Andrew Wyeth Fellowship at the Center for Advance Study and Visual Arts (CASVA) in Washington, D.C exploring the Philadelphia roots of American Photography. Michelle will join Rutgers University-New Brunswick as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Center for Cultural Analysis for the 2020-21 academic year.

Shannon Steiner successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, “Byzantine Enamel and the Aesthetics of Technological Power, Ninth to Twelfth Centuries,” on November 5. Shannon is currently a Hanns Swarzenski and Brigitte Horney Swarzenski Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Nava Streiter received a Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fellowship for her dissertation research on representations of body language in middle-Byzantine illuminated manuscripts.

Mechella Yezernitskaya started the Brunilde Sismondo Ridgeway Curatorial Fellowship at the Brooklyn Museum in the fall. She is a Fellow in the European Art department where she is researching the institutional history of collecting and exhibiting Central and Eastern European Art at the Museum. She presented this research at the 51^st Annual Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Conference in San Francisco in November 2019. She also presented her dissertation research at the 45^th Annual Art History Symposium at the Cleveland Museum of Art in October 2019. 

Amalia Wojciechowski successfully defended her doctoral dissertation “Visions of their Land: Młoda Polska & The Making of Landscape.”

Math

Lindsay Dever attended the Summer School on L2-Torsion and Symmetric Spaces at the University of Göttingen in Germany from September 30 to October 4. On October 25, Lindsay gave a talk at the entitled "Weyl's Law: From Isometries to Eigenvalues".

Physics

Carlos Cartagena presented research At The Canadian-American-Mexican Graduate Student Physics Conference at Laurentian University in Ontario in late July. His poster presentation was entitled “Taylor Scale and Magnetic Reynolds Number Estimation via Two-Point Spatial Correlations.”

Olivia McCauley attended the workshop “Space Astrometry for Astrophysics” at the International School of Space Science (ISSS) at the Gran Sasso Science Institute, in L’Aquila, Italy. The workshop drew together up to fifty young researchers to learn about the  , the first project to attempt making a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way Galaxy. The workshop was a great complement to Olivia’s ongoing research into the processes that influence the movement and position of stars within Milky Way-like galaxies via simulations. Her Ph.D. project focuses on a concept in astrophysics known as radial migration – the way in which stars can change their orbits around the galaxy.

Xiao Wang successfully defended her dissertation titled “Magnetic Skyrmions in Multilayers with Interfactial Dzaloshinskii-Moriya Interactions” on April 22.