Staff in Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology

Dr Andrew Bayliss

Dr Andrew Bayliss

Associate Professor in Greek History
Head of the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology

I am passionate about Ancient History and what it can teach us about the modern world. Learning how to analyse ancient sources gives us the critical thinking skills we need to evaluate the many forms of information we come across in our daily lives.

Dr Henriette van der Blom

Dr Henriette van der Blom

Reader in Ancient History

I am an ancient historian specialised in the history and political life of the Roman Republic. My research focuses on republican politics in the City of Rome, Roman oratory, all aspects of Cicero, and Roman approaches to the past. I have a strong interest in political oratory across historical periods – including current British political speech – and am the founding director of the Ne ...

Dr Philip Burton

Dr Philip Burton

Reader in Latin and Early Christian Studies

I have a long-standing fascination with three areas – language and linguistics, especially Latin and the Romance languages, the early history of Christianity, and the reception of the Graeco-Roman world in modern English literature and culture. In my work at Birmingham, I'm privileged to be able to combine these areas of interest with students and colleagues, and I'm always glad to hear ...

Professor Henry Chapman

Professor Henry Chapman

Professor of Archaeology

Henry’s research interests centre on the later prehistoric period, and particularly the relationships between human activity and environmental change within past landscapes and focusing on wetland sites. He specialises in the use of digital technologies to enable the modelling and analysis of the wide range of information required for such study to engage with past sites and landscapes.

Thi ...

Dr Hannah Cornwell

Dr Hannah Cornwell

Associate Professor in Ancient History

Roman political and social history of the Republic and Early Empire, focusing on Imperialism, peace, and diplomacy.

Dr Archie Dunn

Teaching Fellow in Byzantine Archaeology

Archie Dunn is a Member of the Council of the British School at Athens, the Committee of the Cotton Foundation and  the editorial board of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. He directs the Survey of Ancient Thisve/Byzantine Kastorion (Central Greece)in collaboration with the Greek Archaeological Service.

Paul Garwood

Paul Garwood

Senior Lecturer in Prehistory

I use archaeological and anthropological perspectives to explore prehistoric social life and cultural expression, focussing on the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Britain and north-west Europe.  My main areas of interest are funerary practices, ritual, monumental architecture, material culture, personhood and landscape, with a strong commitment to fieldwork as a means to investigate prehistoric ...

Dr Theodora Hadjimichael

Dr Theodora Hadjimichael

Lecturer in Ancient Greek Literature

I was trained as a philologist (Ancient Greek and Latin; Byzantine and Modern Greek), and my research focuses on Greek intellectual culture. I work on Greek lyric poetry, and my research interests also include ancient literary criticism, ancient Greek scholarship, music and dance in antiquity, Plato, and the Peripatetics.

Dr Jessica Lightfoot

Dr Jessica Lightfoot

Lecturer in Greek Literature

My work focuses on Greek and Roman literature and cultural history. I have particular interests in the literary and scientific cultures of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, the cultural history of the Hellenistic world, and ancient poetics.  

Dr William Mack

Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek History and Culture

The main focus of my teaching and research is the ancient Greek city-states, particularly their interstate relations and institutions.

Dr Maeve McHugh

Dr Maeve McHugh

Lecturer in Classical Archaeology

I am an archaeologist with expertise in the Greek Archaic to Classical periods. I work with historical and archaeological data to reconstruct the lives of rural non-elite individuals and communities in the Greek world to learn more about the interrelationships between physical, social, and cultural landscapes.

Dr Gideon Nisbet

Dr Gideon Nisbet

Reader in Classics

I teach and research in Greek and Latin literature, particularly epigram and Greek writers in the Roman Empire; ancient books on papyrus; and the reception of classical antiquity in modern culture.

Dr Leire Olabarria

Dr Leire Olabarria

Lecturer in Egyptology

I am a Lecturer in Egyptology with an interest in the application of social and cultural anthropology to the study of ancient Egypt. My work focuses on kinship and marriage in the Middle Kingdom and on the social construction of monumental spaces. I am also a field archaeologist and have been working at the site of Dayr el-Barsha in Middle Egypt since 2012.

Dr Daniel Reynolds

Dr Daniel Reynolds

Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History

Daniel Reynolds is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History with research interests in the material and visual culture of the Byzantine empire, the Byzantine and early Islamic Levant (c.350-c.1099), “iconoclasm” and the history of peasant and non-elite communities (c.400-1000). He is co-director of the project “At the Crossroads of Empires: the Longobard Church of ...

Dr Gareth Sears

Dr Gareth Sears

Associate Professor in Ancient History

I am a Roman historian who teaches and researches on the city, city life and religious change in the Roman world and in particular late Roman North Africa.

Dr David Smith

Dr David Smith

Senior Lecturer in Environmental Archaeology

David Smith’s main research interests concern the interpretation of insect remains from the archaeological record. He uses insect remains to investigate landscape and land-use change as well as living conditions in archaeological settlements. David has over 25 years’ experience providing commercial consultancy on insect remains from a range of archaeological sites in the UK and ...

Professor Diana Spencer

Professor Diana Spencer

Professor of Classics
Dean of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences (2014-2018; 2019-)

I am primarily interested in what we think Romans thought about themselves (as reflected in texts), how they conceptualized themselves as a people, and responded to (and were shaped by) the world they lived in.

I enjoy investigating how identity and cultural politics are manifest through narratives emphasising space, territory, cultivation of place, and ethos. I research authors and texts ...

Dr Elena Theodorakopoulos

Dr Elena Theodorakopoulos

Senior Lecturer in Classics

My research interests are in two main areas: Roman poetry of the Republic and Principate, and the reception of classical culture and literature in contemporary film and literature.

Dr Maria Vrij

Coin Curator, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

Maria Vrij is curator of the coin collection at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, which comprises over 16,000 objects, most of which are Byzantine, but also includes around 5,000 Roman coins. In this role she facilitates academic research and teaching (undergraduate, postgraduate, and schools outreach) with the collection.

Maria’s research interests mainly concern the coinage of the ...

Dr Ken Wardle

Senior Lecturer

Ken Wardle is expert in the archaeology of prehistoric Greece and ancient Macedonia and has directed and taken part in field projects in many parts of Greece.

Honorary staff

NameJob title
Professor Tim CornellHonorary Professor of Ancient History
Dr Mike HodderHonorary Lecturer in Archaeology
Dr Ailsa HuntHonorary Research Fellow
Professor David HJ LarmourHonorary Professor of Classics
Dr Tony LeahyHonorary Research Fellow
Dr Michela LuiselliHonorary Fellow in Egyptology
Dr Fiona Mitchell Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Wendy SmithHonorary Research Fellow
Dr Polly Stoker Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Roger WhiteHonorary Senior Lecturer in Archaeology

Emeritus staff

NameJob title
Professor Leslie BrubakerProfessor Emerita of Byzantine Art
Professor Ken DowdenEmeritus Professor of Classics
Prof Simon Esmonde ClearyEmeritus Professor of Roman Archaeology
Professor John HunterEmeritus Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology
Professor Susan LimbreyEmeritus Professor of Archaeology
Professor Richard TomlinsonEmeritus Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology
Professor Dimitris TziovasProfessor Emeritus of Modern Greek Studies