Current Graduate Students

	Emily Aguilar eea43@cornell.edu Ancient Philosophy	Emily (she/her) joined the PhD program in Fall 2023. She received her A.B. in Classical Languages from Bryn Mawr College in 2022 and her M.A. from Bryn Mawr in 2023 with a thesis on the female reproductive system in Platonic, Hermetic, and alchemical cosmogony. She is interested in ancient philosophy and religion, especially in metaphysics, religious syncretism, and the evolution of the Platonic tradition. Outside of her academic work, she enjoys hiking and reading science fiction.
	Marcus Beardsley mlb524@cornell.edu Ancient History	Marcus joined the PhD program on the Ancient History track in Fall 2026. He earned his Honors Bachelor of Arts with Distinction summa cum laude from the University of Delaware, majoring in History and Classics and writing a senior thesis on labor identity at Roman-period ports. Having excavated with projects in Türkiye, Portugal, and Greece, Marcus has an acute interest in material culture of all shapes, sizes, and contexts. He hopes to interweave both archaeological and textual evidence in his research to help improve our understanding of the socioeconomic experiences of non-elite groups and individuals in the Roman Empire.
	Eric Blum erb252@cornell.edu Classical Literature and Philology	Eric Blum joined the Cornell Classics department in Fall 2022. He earned his B.A. in Classical Studies summa cum laude with a minor in Linguistics from Brandeis University that same year. He is interested in Greek poetry from Homer through the fifth century, particularly the lyric of Pindar and the choral odes of tragedy. Particular focuses include pragmatic and lexicographic approaches to poetry. He is most enthralled by language which seems to actively resist being understood. His dissertation, provisionally entitled “Pindar Beyond Praise: Defeat Amid Victory in Pindar’s Ajax Poems,” argues that a priori assumptions about genre can obscure the expansive poikilia of Pindar’s poetry. The Judgment of Arms myth in particular is a story not about celebrating victory, but about acknowledging defeat even in happy circumstances.
	Bee Candelaria bkc56@cornell.edu Ancient History	Bee Candelaria (she/her) joined the PhD program in Fall 2024 on the Ancient History track. She is a first generation high school and college graduate, the first of her family to attend graduate school, a QuestBridge alumna, and a Mellon Mays Fellow. She graduated with a BA cum laude from Carleton College in 2024 with a major in Classics and minor in Archaeology. Her research focuses on labor history in the Greco-Roman world, concentrating on the experience of poverty through an intersectional lens. Additionally, Bee researches how the discipline of Classics interacts with systems of power in our contemporary world. Outside of her academic life, she enjoys cooking, baking, and gardening.
	Leah Cynara Cook lcc2@cornell.edu Classical Literature and Philology	Leah is a PhD student in Classics, working towards her degree through the Employee Degree Program. She earned her B.A. from Cornell University in 1993, dual majoring in Classics and Philosophy, graduating magna cum laude in Classics and with distinction in all subjects. Her research interests include the intersections of ancient magic, epic poetry, and pharmacology and botany. She is also the program coordinator for the Plant Sciences major in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell.
	Kate Hall kh642@cornell.edu Classical Archaeology and Art	Kate joined the PhD program on the Classical Archaeology track in Fall 2024. She received her BA in Classical Civilization and Anthropology from Wellesley College and earned a MA in Archaeology from Cornell University. She is interested in the material and visual culture of the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean, especially funerary practice, art, violence and human-nature relationships. Her recent MA thesis explored the construction of warrior ideologies in the iconographic and mortuary contexts of Mycenae. She has excavated at Wellesley’s College Hall site as well as Despotiko, Greece and has participated in both archaeological and dendrochronological fieldwork in Cyprus.
	Sam Henthorn slh328@cornell.edu Classical Literature and Philology	Sam joined Cornell as a PhD candidate in Classical Philology and Literature in the Fall of 2024. He received a BA in Classics from Wabash college summa cum laude in 2020 and an MA in Classical Languages from the University of Georgia in the Spring 2024. Sam is interested in the intersection between early Christian and (so-called) pagan literature with an eye towards understanding the complexities of Roman identity in the Late Antique period.
	Hyeonseo Kim hk683@cornell.edu Classical Literature and Philology	Hyeonseo (pronounced hyun-suh) joined the PhD program in Fall 2022. She received her BA in Philosophy and Classics from Seoul National University in 2019, and a Classics MA in 2022 from the same institution. She is interested in how language is manipulated to different ends, the conceptualization and transmission of this skill, and the implications of using good or bad language. She has been exploring these questions with Pindar's epinicians and Latin rhetorical texts. Hyeonseo very much enjoys learning and teaching languages herself.
	Clara McCafferty Wright cmw272@cornell.edu Classical Archaeology and Art	Clara McCafferty Wright is a doctoral student at Cornell University in Classical Archaeology and Art. Her primary research foci include Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, and Greco-Roman reception of Egypt. She recently completed an MPhil degree in Egyptology at the University of Cambridge with a dissertation entitled, “Reconsidering Cleopatra VII: The Lost Narrative of Egypt’s Last Queen.” Clara earned her A.B. at Bryn Mawr College in 2019, where she double majored in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology & Classical Cultures and Societies. At Bryn Mawr, she was a Hanna Holborn Gray Research Fellow and authored a thesis on Cleopatra VII’s political influence on the Isis cult in Italy. During her undergraduate degree, she also studied in the Egyptology programs at the University of Pennsylvania and the American University in Cairo. In addition, she established The Bryn Mawr College Magic Lantern Slide Digitization Project. Clara currently serves as a Director of The American Research Center in Egypt—Missouri Chapter, and a team member of the Egyptology State of the Field Survey Project. Clara is passionate about diversifying our understanding of the ancient world to one which includes the narratives of disenfranchised members of societies, including women, enslaved people, and the working class. She has a strong interest in using the study of the past to empower people today by making information on the ancient world accessible to rural and underprivileged communities.
	Sara Merker smm435@cornell.edu Classical Literature and Philology	Sara Merker is a fourth-year PhD candidate concentrating in Classical Philology and Literature. She graduated with Distinction from McGill University (2020), receiving a B.A. with First Class Honours in Classics. At Cornell, Sara has specialized in the topics of religious entrepreneurship (2nd - 4th centuries CE), Roman law and literature, and Second Sophistic literature. The goal of Sara’s dissertation, tentatively titled “Humor in Early Christian Polemic,” is to analyze early Christian polemical treatises as rhetorical texts which strategically employ humor as a method of persuasion and literary composition. This research is significant as it overturns traditional scholarship which assumes a negative relationship between ‘Christianity’ and humor, a conclusion often based on the abstract opinions of select late antique Christian authors.
	Jordan Murphy jlm594@cornell.edu Classical Archaeology and Art	Jordan (she/they) is a third-year Ph.D. student in Classics in the Archaeology and Art track. She received her B.A. in Classical Civilizations and Political Science with a minor in Anthropology from U.C. Berkeley in 2023 (Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Sigma Alpha, with Highest Honors in Classics). They are primarily interested in Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age political and economic institutions, the development of complexity, and the archaeology of non-elites in the eastern Mediterranean. She has participated in archaeological fieldwork in Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, and New York.
	Jun Pang jp2544@cornell.edu
	Alessandro Peiris Pattiyage ap793@cornell.edu Ancient Philosophy	Alessandro joined the Classics Department in 2021. Prior to that, he received his BA and MA in Classics from the University of Florence. During his MA, he spent a year at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where alongside Greek philosophy, he studied also Sanskrit philosophy. At Cornell, he joined the Ancient Philosophy concentration, focusing primarily on Greek and Sanskrit philosophy. His dissertation, tentatively titled “Metaphysics and Structure: Plato and Aristotle in Plotinus’ Metaphysics of Being”, examines topics from Plotinus’ treatise On the Genera of Being (Ennead VI 1-3) to determine the different influence of Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines on Plotinus’ theory of genera and its function within the hypostasis of Nous. Further interests include Plato’s late metaphysics, Aristotle’s metaphysics and theory of categories, and Alexander’s anti-determinism. In Sanskrit philosophy, interests include Vasubandhu’s Viṃśika, Kumārila’s Ślokavarttika (mainly Nirālambanavāda and Śunyavāda), and, in general, idealism-realism debates and mereology.
	Carson Riggs cr627@cornell.edu Classical Archaeology and Art	Carson is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Archaeology and Art track. She earned an A.B. in Classical Archaeology modified with Medieval Studies (salutatorian, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude with high departmental honors) from Dartmouth College in 2023. She has participated in excavations in the United States, Ireland, Turkey, and Cyprus, including the Harvard-Cornell Exploration of Ancient Sardis and the Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments (KAMBE) Project. Carson is broadly interested in apotropaic objects, object agency, and Roman/Early Byzantine material religion. Her dissertation will explore trends in Roman glass intaglio design and production (1st century BCE - 4th century CE) through the compilation of a large digital database of the objects across major collections. Outside of research, Carson enjoys cooking, hiking, and reading thrillers.
	Ariana Rivera aar264@cornell.edu Classical Archaeology and Art	Ariana Alma Rivera (she/her) joined the PhD program in Fall 2026 on the Classical Archaeology track. She is a Mellon Mays fellow and former Solomon Bluhm Scholar. She earned her BA in Classical Archaeology/Special Honors as summa cum laude with a minor in Psychology from Hunter College. She is broadly interested in studying the iconography of Hellenistic statuary as a reflection of the ancient Greeks’ evolving cultural and religious ideals. Before coming to Cornell, she analyzed the Sleeping Eros through the lens of erotic paideia. This project has inspired her to specifically consider how paideia expanded in the Hellenistic period to include a broader range of cultural concerns within Hellenistic society. Outside of her academic life, she enjoys going to the gym, Gothic horror (across media), and scrapbooking.
	Anna Roche amr482@cornell.edu Classical Archaeology and Art	Anna joined the PhD program in Fall 2026. She completed her BA in History with minors in Ethnic Studies and Multidisciplinary Studies at East Carolina University summa cum laude, and earned her MA in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies from Brandeis University. Her research focuses on textile production and exchange in the Bronze Age Aegean, with a particular interest in feminist and community-based economic theory and its applications to ancient island communities. She is also interested in digital archaeology and its methodologies. She has excavated and completed 3-D scanning projects on Pantelleria, Sicily.
	Isabel Tolman-Bronski iat27@cornell.edu Greek and Latin Languages and Linguistics	Isabel joined the department as a PhD student in the Greek and Latin Languages and Linguistics track in Fall 2026 after receiving a B.A. in Classics from Northwestern University in the spring prior. Her interest in classics is rooted in a love for ancient languages, and her primary research interests are linguistic in nature, including the derivational morphology, adposition usage, and historical grammar and syntax of Indo-European languages (including Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Hittite). She also enjoys ancient literature, particularly satire and epic. Outside of her academic life, she enjoys running, hiking, and crossword puzzles.
	Luke Witchey lew224@cornell.edu Classical Literature and Philology	Luke Witchey joined the PhD program in Classics at Cornell in fall 2026, having earned a BA from UNC Chapel Hill in 2022. His focus is on Greek literature, particularly early poetry - epic, lyric, elegy and iambus, tragedy - and historical prose. He is interested in such questions as the evolution of literary forms and genres in the Archaic and Classical periods; Greek poetic diction, syntax, and stylistics; praise, blame, and poetic techniques of memorialization; language of truth and falsehood; speech and gesture in narrative; Herodotus and Thucydides on early Greece.

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