Dr. Anastasia Dakouri-Hild is an Associate Professor in Aegean and Near Eastern Art and Archaeology at the University of Virginia. She holds degrees in Greek Archaeology from the University of Durham (M.A.) and Archaeology and Art History from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Ph.D in Classical Archaeology from the University of Cambridge.
Tess Davis, a lawyer and archaeologist by training, is Executive Director of The Antiquities Coalition. Davis oversees the organization’s work to fight cultural racketeering worldwide, as well as its award-winning think tank in Washington. She has been a legal consultant for the US and foreign governments and works with both the art world and law enforcement to keep looted antiquities off the market. She writes and speaks widely on these issues — having been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Foreign Policy, and top scholarly journals — and featured in documentaries in America and Europe. She is admitted to the New York State Bar, teaches cultural heritage law at Johns Hopkins University, and is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 2015, the Royal Government of Cambodia knighted Davis for her work to recover the country’s plundered treasures, awarding her the rank of Commander in the Royal Order of the Sahametrei.
Professor Tom Dawson is an archaeologist in the School of History at Scotland’s oldest university, St. Andrews. Since 2000, he has managed archaeological projects at the coast, developing innovative ways to record heritage threatened by erosion. Close cooperation with local volunteer groups and members of the public has been key to this work. Tom is one of the Joukowsky lecturers for the AIA’s 2023-2024 National Lecture Program.
Shannon Dunn is a Ph.D. candidate at Bryn Mawr College (ABD, expected 2024), Her dissertation is titled, “Peloponnesian Border Sanctuaries”. She holds degrees from Bryn Mawr (M.A.) and Colorado College (B.A.). Her research interests include: Greek polytheism and cult regionalism; maritime religion; the relationship between landscape, mythology, and cult practice; and early modern reception of antiquity; contemporary issues of cultural heritage. She is the Bass lecturer for the AIA’s 2023-2024 National Lecture Program.
Emily C. Egan is Assistant Professor of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Art and Archaeology at the University of Maryland. She holds degrees from the University of Cincinnati (PhD. and M.A.), the University of Cambridge (M.Phil.), and Brown University (B.A.). Her research focuses on painted wall and floor decoration in the Bronze Age Aegean and especially at the sites of Mycenae and Pylos, where she is engaged in active fieldwork. From 2019-2020 she served as Fellow in Aegean Art at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies. Her publications investigate issues of iconography, artistic agency, cross-craft interaction, and early traditions of Mycenaean mural making. Currently, she is preparing a monograph on the painted floors of the megaron of the Palace of Nestor.
Nathan T. Elkins is the Deputy Director of the American Numismatic Society, and holds his degrees from the University of Missouri (Ph.D.), The University of Reading, and the University of Evansville. Professor Elkins’ research areas include Roman art, coinage and coin iconography, topography and architecture, sport and spectacle, and the illicit antiquities trade. He is the author of three books: A Monument to Dynasty and Death: The Story of Rome’s Colosseum and the Emperors Who Built It (JHUP, 2019), The Image of Political Power in the Reign of Nerva, AD 96-98 (Oxford, 2017), and Monuments in Miniature: Architecture on Roman Coinage (ANS, 2015). He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Fellow of the American Numismatic Society (New York) and of the Royal Numismatic Society (London).
Dr. Scott M. Fitzpatrick is a Professor of Anthropology and Associate Director at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon. He is an archaeologist who specializes in the archaeology and historical ecology of island and coastal regions, particularly in the Pacific and Caribbean. Much of his research focuses on colonization events, seafaring strategies, adaptive strategies on smaller islands, exchange systems, chronometric techniques, and human impacts on ancient environments. He has active field projects in western Micronesia, the southern Caribbean, the Florida Keys, and the Oregon Coast. Dr. Fitzpatrick is the founding Co-Editor of the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology (Routledge/Taylor & Francis), Associate Editor for Archaeology in Oceania, and serves on the editorial boards for three other journals. Recent publications have appeared in Antiquity, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Environmental Archaeology, Radiocarbon, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He also has edited several special issues of journals and volumes, including Voyages of Discovery: the Archaeology of Islands (Praeger, 2004), Island Shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Perspectives on the Pre-Columbian Settlement of the Caribbean (University Press of Florida, 2010), and Ancient Psychoactive Substances (University Press of Florida, 2018). His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (Japan), among others.
Elise A. Friedland is Associate Professor of Classics and Art History at the George Washington University. She has published two co-edited volumes, The Sculptural Environment of the Roman Near East and The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture, and a monograph, The Roman Marble Sculptures from the Sanctuary of Pan at Caesarea Philippi/Panias (Israel). In 2013, Dr. Friedland was awarded GW’s Bender Teaching Award and the Archaeological Institute of America’s National Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. She received a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Fellowship for her current book project, Classical Washington: Greece & Rome in the Art and Architecture of D.C.
Professor Patty Gerstenblith received her BA from Bryn Mawr College and her PhD from Harvard University. She then attended law school and graduated with her JD from Northwestern University in 1983. She has served as a member of the United States Cultural Property Advisory Committee from 2000-2003 and is currently the Director for the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University.
Professor Liwy Grazioso is the current Minister of Culture and Sports of Guatemala. She received her degree in Archaeology at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) Mexico, and a Masters in Mesoamerican Studies by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her areas of research interest include Mesoamerican Archaeology, protection and conservation of cultural heritage, iconography, spatial analysis, hydraulic systems, and museums and collections. She is one of the Joukowsky lecturers for the AIA’s 2023-2024 National Lecture Program