Overview
I am a PhD student at Duke University studying Classics. My research interests broadly span Greek history and historiography of the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE -- both those who wrote of it contemporaneously (i.e. Xenophon) or retroactively (i.e. Diodorus Siculus). In particular, I seek to contextualize these authors and their subject matter through everyday evidence such as numismatics and epigraphy.
As a sort of geographical center, I often find myself returning to the Troad (modern Çanakkale, Turkey) and the Hellespont. In my undergraduate thesis at UNC Chapel Hill, I delved into Alexander the Great's battle at the Granicus River (modern Biga valley, Turkey), utilizing recent topographical and archaeological evidence to dissect and contextualize historiographical quandaries.
My master's thesis at Washington University in St Louis presents a die study of the enigmatic phi-lambda tetradrachms of the successor king Lysimachos. These coins, minted at Lysimacheia, Lampsakos, Parion (all in the Hellespont/Troad), and Kios (modern Gemlik, Turkey) demonstrate why I find this region so fascinating -- as the nexus of commerce from the Black Sea to the Nile, from Mesopotamia to the Balkans and beyond, the study of the Troad requires one to study a wide geographical and temporal range.