GRADUATE STUDENTS

Brian Apicella
Education: B.A., Classical Languages (Summa cum laude), The Ohio State University; M.A., Philosophy, Duquesne University; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2009.
Awards: Graduate Research Mentorship, 2009-2010, UCLA
Activities: Graduate Student Representative, UCLA Classics Department, 2008-2009
Interests: Ancient Philosophy, Theory of Language, Political Theory.

Michael Brumbaugh
Education: Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, Rome, Italy, 2003; Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France, 2004; A.B., magna cum laude, honors in Classics, Colgate University, 2004; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2007; C.Phil., UCLA, June 2009.
Awards: Andrew Mellon Fellowship; Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, UCLA; UCLA Quality of Graduate Education Award for study at Goethe Institut, Dresden, 2006; Graduate Research Mentorship, UCLA, 2008
Research Interests: Greek Literature, Ancient Literary Criticism, Imperial Latin Literature, Classical Reception in the Colonial Americas.
Activities: "Chaos - A Critical Analysis of Original Space," Imaginary Landscapes, The Johns Hopkins University, October, 2005; "Chaos - A Critical Analysis of Theogonic Origins," APA Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, January 2006; “Doing Justice to Hesiod and Clarifying Murky Tartaros,” Imagined Places, Harvard University, April, 2006; "Making the Hymn: Mesomedean Narrative and the Interpretation of a Genre," KYKNOS Conference: Hymns as Narrative and the Narratology of Hymns, Lampeter, Wales, May 2009.
Dissertation: “Masters of Praise”; Kathryn Morgan*, Alex Purves, David Blank, Greg Thalmann (USC)

Renée Calkins
Education: B.A., Writing, UC San Diego, 1993; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2005; C.Phil, UCLA, 2008
Research Interests: Archaic Attic funerary monuments and rituals; locating Greek and Latin texts within their social landscape; imperial Roman architecture.
Awards:2007 Summer Session Field Scholarship, American School of Classical Studies at Athens; 2007 UCLA Summer Research Mentorship
Activities:Graduate Research Fellow at the UCLA Experiential Technologies Center, 2003-2006 for the creation of real-time, VR models: Arch of Titus, Septizodium, Ludus Magnus and Santiago de Compostela.
Dissertation:“Making Kleos Thneton: Archaic Attic funerary monuments and the creation of social memory”; John Papadopoulos*, Sarah Morris, Alex Purves, David Phillips (History)

Cameron Fitzsimmons
Education: B.A., Comparative Literature, Sarah Lawrence College, 1992; M.A., San Francisco State University, 2004
Awards: Ungaretti Translation Prize, Department of Classics, San Francisco State University, 2002 and 2003; William R. Hearst/CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement, 2003; Richard Trapp Graduate Teaching Fellowship in Latin, San Francisco State University, 2003; Chancellor’s Fellowship, UCLA, 2004
Research Interests:  Roman social history and Latin satire, epigram, comedy; class, gender and sexuality (especially construction of masculinity)

Robert Groves
Education:  B.S., Classics, University of Wisconsin, 2002; Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classics, UCLA, 2005, M.A., Classics, UCLA 2007.
Awards: Graduate Research Mentorship 2008-2009, UCLA; American Society of Papyrologists Scholarship, 2008; Logan Prize for Greek Translation and Pillinger Prize for Latin Translation, University of Wisconsin, 2002.
Research Interests: Bilingualism and its representation in the Ancient World, The Ancient Novel, Ovid, Ethnographic and Geographic Writings, their Reception, and Reuse (from Homer and Herodotus to Pliny and Pope Pius II), Ptolemaic Documentary Papyrology (Greek and Demotic).
Activities: “Women, Sex, Bilingualism, and the Aethiopika” (APA, 2010), "Papyrus Stanford Greek Green 8" Forthcoming in an edition of Papyrologica Bruxellensis (2010). "Heliodorus and Ancient Bilingualism: Fiction and Facts", Ancient Cultures in Contact: Catalysts for Change, University of Pennsylvania, March 2009. Teaching Assistant Consultant, UCLA Classics, 2008-2009; Papyrology Institute at Stanford University, 2008; "The Librarian and the Shaman: Making Sense of Apollonius's Allusions to Empedocles"; CAMWS, 2007. Co-Chair, Freaks! Exploring the Unnatural in the Classical World, UCLA, 2006. Theatrical performances including acting and singing roles: Aristophanes' Birds (APA, 2007), Gilbert and Sullivan's Thespis (APA, 2006) and directing the beginning Latin students' production of Auricula Meretricula (UCLA, 2009, 2007)
Dissertation Topic: (expected) “Interpreting the Language Barrier in the Worlds of Heliodorus”  David Blank*, Jacco Dieleman (NELC), Sarah Morris, Mario Teló, Brent Vine

Emily Kratzer
Education: B.A., University of Kansas, 2003; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2006; C.Phil, UCLA, 2008
Awards: Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA, 2009-2010; Honorable Mention, CAMWS Presidential Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper, 2009; Dean‚s Humanities Fellowship, UCLA 2004-2005, 2008-2009; Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship, UCLA 2007-2008; Quality of Graduate Education Award, UCLA, Spring Quarter, 2008
Research Interests: Greek poetry; Greek religion and mythology; cultural studies; ancient drama
Activities: "Images of Triumph and Defeat: The Nostos of Herakles in the Trakhiniai," APA, Anaheim, 2010; "Athletics Metaphors for Apotheosis and the Death of Herakles in Sophokles‚ Trakhiniai," University of Wisconson-Madison Graduate Colloquium, October, 2009; "ἄνω κάτω: Spatial Metaphor in Euripides' Herakles and the Duality of the Hero," CAMWS, Minneapolis 2009; "Contesting Ideologies: The Epinician and Soteriological in Pindar's Olympian" APA, Chicago 2008; "The didactic role of recusatio and the Horatian persona" CAMWS, Tucson 2008; Department of Classics Graduate Student Representative, 2006-2007; Graduate Representative for Classics Faculty Search Committee, APA, Chicago 2008
Dissertation: "The Double Herakles: Studies on the Death and Deification of the Hero in Fifth-Century Drama"; Kathryn Morgan*, John Papadopoulos*, Alex Purves, Jacco Dieleman (NELC)

Alexander Lessie
Education: B.A., summa cum laude with honors in Classical Studies,  University of Pennsylvania, 2009.
Awards: Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, UCLA; Phi Beta Kappa;  College Alumni Society Prize in Classics, University of Pennsylvania, 2009; Rose Undergraduate Research Award, University of Pennsylvania, 2009; Dean?s Scholar, University of Pennsylvania, 2009; Allen Prize in Greek translation, University of Pennsylvania, 2008.
Interests: Greek philosophy and literature, particularly Plato;  intellectual history; the archaeology of Greece.
Activities: Member of topographical survey team, Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project, 2008 and 2009 field seasons.

Suzanne Lye
Education: A.B., Harvard University (magna cum laude), 1998; Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classics, University of Pennsylvania, 2005; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2007.
Fellowships: Weissman International Fellowship, Harvard University, 1996; John Finley Traveling Fellowship, Harvard University, 1998; Summer Fellowship, Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington D.C., 2005; Conference Travel Grant, Center for the Study of Women at UCLA, 2006; Summer Fellowship, Classical Society of the American Academy in Rome, 2006; CAMWS Semple Award for the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, 2007. UCLA Graduate Research Mentorship Year-long Fellowship, 2007-08; UCLA Graduate Research Mentorship Summer Fellowship, 2008.
Research Interests: Mythologies of Death and the Underworld, ancient colonization, ethnic identity, and bilingualism; Orpheus and Greco-Roman cult practices, magic, and religion; Homeric epic and its reception in Hellenistic and Second Sophistic literature; memory and monuments; public spectacle.
Activities: Co-chair, Freaks! Exploring the Unnatural in the Ancient World, UCLA Graduate Conference, 2006; Graduate Student Representative, UCLA Classics Department, 2007-2008; Graduate Student Representative, Women’s Classical Caucus, 2007-08; Graduate Advisor, Classical Society of UCLA Undergraduate Club, 2009-10.
Conferences: "Organizing Crime: Circus Factions in the Ancient World," University of Southern California Graduate Conference, Los Angeles, 2006; "Sulpicia's Illness and the Feminization of Masculine Love Elegy," UCLA Thinking Gender Conference, 2006; "Oath theory, the Goddess Styx, and Justice in Hesiod's Theogony," CorHaLi XVII Conference, Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington DC, 2006; "The Goddess Styx and the Mapping of World Order in Hesiod's Theogony," Rocky Mountain Association MLA Conference, Tucson, AZ, 2006; "Binding Spell: The Merging of Orpheus and Medea in the Argonautica," CAMWS, Tucson, AZ, April 2008; "Passport to the Underworld: Negotiating the Borderlands of the Afterlife," UCSB Graduate Conference, Santa Barbara, CA, March 2008; "Controlling the Gods: Religion, Human Resourcefulness, and Divine Will in the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes," University of Groningen Conference and Hellenistic Workshop, Groningen, The Netherlands, August 2008; "Empress Theodora: The Power in Front of the Throne," American Philological Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, January 2009; "Border Crossings to the Underworld," Classical Association of Canada Annual Meeting, Vancouver, B.C., May 2009; "The Talking Dead in Heliodorus and Lucian," Conference on "Communications with the Dead in the Ancient Mediterranean," Volos, Greece, June 2009; "Gender and Ethnicity in Heliodorus' Aithiopika," American Philological Association Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA, January 2010.

Kristie Mann
Education: B.A. Classics and Creative Writing, Northwestern University, 2008.
Research Interests: Greek literature and history; linguistics; undergraduate thesis: A Translation of and Commentary on Pindar, Paeans 2, 4, 6, and 9.

Shawna Martin
Education: B.A. Ancient Greek and Latin, Classical Civilization, Boston University 2009.
Awards: Dean Elsbeth Melville Latin Prize, Boston University Humanities Foundation, 2008; Alice M. Brennan Humanities Award, Boston University Humanities Foundation, 2008; College Prize for Excellence in Classical Studies, Boston University, 2009
Interests: Augustan Age history and literature, epic poetry, history of the Latin language, Indo-European linguistics

Katharine Piller
Education: B.A., Classical Languages, University of Kansas, 2006; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2008
Awards: Phi Beta Kappa, departmental honors, Distinction in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; UCLA Chancellor’s Prize, 2006; Graduate Research Mentorship 2009-2010.
Interests: Augustan poetry, particularly Ovid and Virgil, modern cinematic reception of the Greek 
romance, silver Latin, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Pythagoras, and Parthenius

Alex Press
Education: B.A., Classics, Columbia College, 1989; Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classics, UCLA, 2007; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2009
Interests: Linguistics, literary theory, Greek and Roman comedy, intellectual history

Emily Rush
Education: B.A., Classical Languages, Art History, University of St. Thomas; M.A., Art History, University of Chicago; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2006; Regular Member, American School of Classical Studies at Athens 2007-2008.
Awards: UCLA Summer Research Mentorship Award, UCLA, 2005; UCLA Quality of Graduate Education Award for a Goethe Institute language course in Munich, 2005; UCLA Quality of Graduate Education Award, Summer 2006; Women's Classical Caucus Award for best graduate student presentation "Erotic Magic and Inversion in Sophocles' Trachiniae" APA 2007; Bert Hodge Hill Fellowship, American School of Classical Studies at Athens 2007-2008.
Research Interests: Hellenistic poetry and the Ancient novel; Ekphrasis and ancient painting; the relationship between literary evidence and material culture.
Activities: "Erotic Magic and Inversion in Sophocles' Trachiniae," APA, Montreal 2006; Co-Organizer: Freaks! Exploring the Unnatural in the Classical World, November 10-11, 2006; "Between Text and Image: Intertextuality and the Ransom of Hektor," Homer and His Worlds, NYU Graduate Conference, March 24, 2007. "A Gendered Genre? : Embedded Letters and Erotic Identity in Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon" Epistulae Signum: Correspondence in Life and Literature, UVA Graduate Conference, March 14, 2009.
Dissertation Topic: (expected) "Writing Gems: The Poetics of Ekphrasis in Hellenistic Epigrams and Later Greek Prose" David Blank, John Papadopoulos, Mario Teló

Ellen Snyder
Education: B.A. Classics, Oberlin College, 2002; M.A. Classics, Vanderbilt University, 2006
Awards: Florence Frew Prize for Excellence in Greek and Latin Languages, Oberlin College; University Fellowship, Vanderbilt University; Rankin Award, Vanderbilt University
Research Interests: Gender and sexuality; sexual violence in ancient warfare
Dissertation Topic: (expected) "The Gendered Construction of Roman Imperium in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita" Robert Gurval, Ronald Mellor, Amy Richlin, Mario Telo

Charles Stein
Education: B.A., Classics, Reed College, Portland, Oregon, 2005; ICCS, Spring 2004; M.A., Classics, UCLA, 2007
Awards:  Phi Beta Kappa; Pauley Fellowship, 2005-2006; Quality of Graduate Education Award for study at Goethe Institut, Freiburg, Germany, 2006
Activities: "Perception and Absorption: The Place of Metaphor in Empedocles'
Account of Learning," CAPN 2008, Tacoma, WA.
Research Interests: Epic poetry; intersection of epic with other genres.

Brian Walters
Education:  B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Missouri, Kansas City, 1998; M.A. in Classics, University of Kansas, 2003; C. Phil., UCLA , January 2009,
Research Interests: Roman Literature; Roman Topography; Reception of Classics in American Poetry
Awards: Tenney Frank Research Fellowship, University of Kansas; Tenney Frank Award for Foreign Study, University of Kansas; Austin Lashbrook Memorial Award for outstanding, overall contribution to the Classics program, University of Kansas; Chancellor's Fellowship, 2005-2006, UCLA; Chencellor's Summer Graduate Research Mentorship, 2006, UCLA; Summer Graduate Research Mentorship, 2008, UCLA; Graduate Research Mentorship, 2008-2009, UCLA
Activities: "Love, War, and Periodic Structure: Propertius 1.21-22," CAMWS, Austin TX, April 2002; "Contemporary Allusions in Plautus' Casina 523-4," CAMWS, Louisville, KY, April 2003; "Introire and the Public Stage: Performance and Spectacle in the Letters of M. Caelius Rufus," ASHR, Boston, MA, October 2005; "Lexicography as Ritual: Roman Antiquarianism and the Cantos of Ezra Pound," 41st Comparative Literature Conference, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 2006; Graduate Representative for Classics Faculty Search Committee, APA, Chicago 2008; "A Reassessment of Empedocles' 'Roots'," CAPN, Tacoma, WA, 2008; Graduate Student Representative, UCLA Classics Department, 2008-2009
Dissertation: "The Violence of Metaphor: Dismembering the Body Politic at the End of the Roman Republic"; Shane Butler*; Bob Gurval; Amy Richlin; Anthony Corbeill (KU)