Students and Alumni

Current MA Students

Rachel Fawcett

Interests: Visual representations of the marginalized and oppressed in Greek and Roman art and architecture; Greek and Roman Archaeology; slavery in the ancient world; Roman archaeology.

Rachel grew up in Surrey, BC. She is an avid reader and life-long athlete. She attended Western University in London, ON for her undergraduate degree. While working towards her degree, she was a member of Western Mustangs’ Figure Skating team, as well as being a general member with Western’s Student Athlete Mental Health Initiative (SAMHI) group and volunteered backstage on two of Theatre Westerns productions. She completed her HBA in an Honors Specialization in Creative Writing, English Language, and Literature with a Major in Classical Studies in June 2022.

She is enrolled in Brock University’s MA in Classics, in the Art and Archaeology stream. Her current research interests include the visual representations of the marginalized and oppressed in Greek and Roman art and architecture, Greek and Roman Archaeology, and slavery in the ancient world. And while attending Brock University, Rachel looks forward to continuing her skating career with Brock’s Figure Skating team.

Sam Fisher

Interests: Roman social and cultural history, Roman religion; the Vestal Virgins; Latin language and literature

Sam received her honours BA in Classics from Brock University in 2021 and remained to pursue her MA. Her academic focus is on the lives and roles of ancient women with more general interests on the social history of ancient Rome, Roman religion, restoration, and the accessibility of education, particularly within the field of Classics. In 2021 of her MA, through a graduate course, Sam had the opportunity to be a co-author and co-editor of an open access book titled Houses and Households in Ancient Greece with her chapter focusing on ancient poverty. After completing her MA, she aims to enter the academic fields of archiving and cataloguing along with restoration and conservation efforts.

Interests: Maritime archaeology; ships, shipping, and trade in the ancient Mediterranean; migration in the ancient and contemporary Mediterranean, Greek language and literature.

Interests: Greek and Roman mythology; Classical reception; the depiction of the Greek and Roman gods in popular culture, especially in film, graphic novels, and comics.

Madison Kieffer

Interests: Greek and Roman archaeology; Magna Graecia and Greek colonization of Sicily and Southern Italy; Trade and travel in the ancient Mediterranean; Greek Sanctuaries.

Arriving in St. Catharines from Atlantic Canada, I completed my BA at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, majoring in Anthropology and Classics. In 2019, alongside students and researchers from the Gabinete de Arqueología and the Universidad de la Habana, I participated in excavations conducted at a 19th century coffee and sugar plantation outside of Havana, Cuba. During the Covid-19 pandemic, in conjunction with the Metaponto Archaeological Project (led by Dr. Spencer Pope of McMaster University and Dr. Sveva Savelli of Saint Mary’s University), I assisted with organizing and processing legacy data from excavations conducted at Incoronata ‘greca’, an Iron Age, Oenotrian-Greek settlement in Southern Italy. Both experiences have contributed to an overarching interest in the ways archaeological research and material cultural evidence can inform our understanding of colonial dynamics (past and present) and the social, cultural, and environmental impacts of colonization – topic areas I plan to explore through the completion of an MA at Brock University.

Taylor Menard

Interests: Roman history and historiography, Roman conceptions of self, Conquest and cultural interactions, and Roman leadership.

Growing up in Montréal, QC, I moved to the Eastern Townships to receive my BA (Honours) in Classics from Bishop’s University.

My thesis centers around Roman understandings of virtus as used within Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum which has helped define my scope of interests. I intend to pursue research within the realms of Roman conceptions of self, leadership, and cultural interactions between Rome and conquered peoples, particularly within martial contexts.

Though my interests lie in Roman history, I have conducted research within the realm of Greek archeology and history, specifically relating to sea-based movement and its interactions with female-presenting figures within Greek Antiquity.

Sarah Murray

Interests: Latin language and literature; social and religious history of Rome; Latin philology and the study of commentaries.

I am a part-time, mature student in my first year of my Master’s.  I was a nurse for many years, and I am now enjoying my second life as a perpetual student.

I am interested in pretty much everything Classics, but my MRP will be focused on creating a Latin commentary. I enjoy the history and especially the archaeology. I have been on six digs so far and I hope to continue volunteering on different archaeological projects for many years.

2022 recipient of the Frederick H. Casler Award in Latin

2022 recipient of the Brock University Classics Distinguished Student Award

2022 recipient of the Society for Classical Studies Distinguished Student Award

Sabrina Perreault

Interests: Roman Imperial history; Roman art and religion; the reign of Nero; Latin language and literature

Born and raised in rural Québec, I have completed my BA with honours at Bishop’s University, in Lennoxville. My academic interests include Graeco-Roman architecture, the concept of emperor worship, Roman history—with a focus on imperial Rome and the reign of the emperor Nero—Roman entertainment, and its social vices. I am also an avid lover of archaeology, having participated in three fieldschools: the Lechaio Harbour and Settlement Land Project (LHSLP), the Central Achaia Phthiotis Survey (CAPS), and RioTana 2022. My goals are to continue to learn about the ancient world and participate in an active contact with history through archaeological work, conservation efforts, museology, and archiving.

2022 recipient of the Society for Classical Studies Distinguished Student Award

Jessie Simpson

Interests: Greek and Roman archaeology, especially mortuary archaeology; Museum Studies; 3-D modelling of ancient artifacts and public access to museum collections.

Jessie holds a First Class Honors Degree in History and Classics from Brock University. In undergraduate studies, they completed a Marzamemi Maritime Heritage Project field school and obtained work experience in the museum and CRM fields. All archaeology and museum studies are included in their broad interests in addition to Greek prehistory and domestic archaeology. Their research will focus on museum studies, working with the decontextualized objects of the Cypriote Museum to understand how to present these objects and others like them to the public, how to make them accessible to other researchers and how to create effective online exhibitions. In the future, they hope to continue working in museum studies with a variety of historical and ancient artefacts in digital formats.

2022 recipient of THE WILLOWBANK SCHOOL OF RESTORATION ARTS/V. & K. POULIMENOS PRACTICUM AWARD

2022 recipient of the Brock University DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS BOOK PRIZE IN ANCIENT ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY

Interests: Etruscan archaeology, art, and religion; Bronze Age archaeology; technology and engineering in the ancient world.

Alumni

What have some of our recent graduates been doing since they completed their degrees?

  • PhD programs at McMaster University, SUNY Buffalo, University of Chicago, University of Cincinnati, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Toronto, Western University, York University
  • Osgoode Hall Law School
  • Fellowships at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens
  • Master’s program in conservation at the Getty Institute in Los Angeles
  • Bachelor’s of Education program at Brock University
  • Archival work for the Canadian Armed Forces
  • Archaeological illustration work for classical archaeologists and social historians working in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey
  • Cultural resource management and contract archaeology in Ontario
  • Editorial intern for Canadian Scholars’ Press
  • Employment at the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation at Brock University
  • Employment at the Ministry of Education in Victoria, British Columbia
  • Law clerk
  • Market research manager at Intuit
  • Project Coordinator for PI Fine Art/Creative Art
  • Social Media Coordinator for Faculty of Humanities, Brock University
  • Teaching at a community college in Ohio

Overseas projects

Current and former students have been or presently are involved in faculty research projects overseas in:

  • Bodrum, Turkey
  • Burgaz, Turkey
  • Gournia, Crete
  • Larnaca, Cyprus
  • Marzamemi, Italy
  • Nemea, Greece
  • Pantelleria, Italy

In addition, students have worked on campus and abroad on research and manuscript preparation for projects concerning gardens, gender, gladiators, Greek prostitution, shipwrecks, and slavery.

Thesis and Major Research Paper Topics

The following topics were addressed in some recently completed theses and major research papers (supervisor in brackets):

  • Snakes in Roman Medical Thought (von Stackelberg)
  • Step by Step Stories: Experiential Narratives in the Great Hunt Mosaic at Piazza Armerina (Murray)
  • Roman Wall Painting in the House of the Menander, Pompeii (von Stackelberg)
  • Intra-Regionality in Etruscan Tomb Paintings (Murray)
  • Suetonius’ portrayal of Tiberius (Dolansky)
  • Whose Data is it Anyway? The Place of Digital Archaeological Data in a World of Intellectual Property Laws and Open Access Movements (Murray)
  • Speech acts in the Homeric Hymns (Nickel)
  • Mycenaean children’s burials (Smith)
  • Early Christian Martyr Cults (Carter)
  • Archaeological ethics and the preservation of Cypriote antiquities (Greene)
  • The language of Greek slavery and its representation in translation (Glazebook)
  • Homosexual subculture in Classical Athens (Glazebrook)
  • Propertius and Augustan identity (Merriam)
  • Early Christian attitudes toward the family (Dolansky)
  • Mycenaean hunting iconography (Smith)
  • Ancient Greek education and Xenophon (Glazebrook)
  • The myth of Procne, Tereus, and Philomela and the ‘other’ in Greek tragedy (Greene)
  • Attitudes to Animals in Plutarch (Carter)
  • Burial evidence for Romanization in Britannia (Murray)
  • Minoan foundation deposits during the Neopalatial period (Smith)
  • Rape narratives in Ovid’s Fasti (Dolansky)
  • Female authority in the oikos (Glazebrook)
  • Dreams in Homer and Herodotus (Nickel)
  • Shopping and marketplace in the Classical agora (Greene)
  • Childhood disability in the Roman world (Dolansky)
  • Gender and Bodily Adornment in Grave Circle B at Mycenae (Smith)
  • Reuse in the walls of Athens (Greene)
  • Numidian elites and wars in North Africa in the third century BCE (Carter)
  • Separatism and the restoration of Rome’s western provinces (Carter)
  • The connection of the Akropolis korai to ancient Greek tragedy (Greene)