Congratulations to the Classics Department Class of 2025
Class of 2025
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Dhruv Anand
A.B. Classics (South Asian Classics) & Health and Human Biology, Departmental HonorsThesis The Divine Name Game: A comparison of two Vedānta commentaries on the Viṣṇu-SahasranāmaDhruv is from Georgia, USA, he is graduating with honors in the Classics department on the South Asian Classics track. He wrote his senior thesis on the Sanskrit religious hymn, the Vishnu Sahasranama. He also concentrated in Health and Human Biology, and will be matriculating to Brown's Alpert Medical School in the fall. During college, Dhruv sang with the Bear Necessities, Brown’s only all-suspendered a capella group, acted in 4 theater productions, including a production of Cyrano de Bergerac in which he played the lead role, and tutored chemistry with the Sheridan Center. In his spare time, he can be seen in Antonio’s on Wacky Wednesdays enjoying a $3 pizza slice.
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Brown Classical Journal, Editor (2022-2025)
The Bear Necessities A Capella Group (2022-2025)
Providence Medical Orchestra (2022-2025)
Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Chemistry Tutor
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James Broderick
A.B. Classics -
Cannon Caspar
A.B. Classics & Computer ScienceExtracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Sigma Xi
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Nishitha Chaayanath
A.B. Classics (Sanskrit) & Sc.B. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Magna Cum LaudeNishitha was born in Atlanta, Georgia but have grown up in Oakville, Canada and Hyderabad, India. She is a classically trained Bharatanatyam. She have had the honor of being dance director and captain on Brown Abhinaya. On campus she was incredibly involved in the Global Brown Center and the International Mentorship program where she has served as a coordinator and a mentor. Her passions also include medicine and she will be pursuing her MD at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Phi Beta Kappa
Sigma Xi
Alfred H. Joslin Award (2025)
BSCS Senior Leadership Award
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Ruth Engelman
A.B. Classics & Archaeology & Judaic Studies (Fall 2025 completion)Ruth is from Pennsylvania, she is a triple concentrator in Classics, Archaeology, and Judaic Studies who plans to pursue further studies in archaeology after graduating from Brown. Her academic work centers on the ancient Mediterranean, with a particular focus on the ancient Jewish world. She worked in the Malcolm H. Wiener Laboratory for Archaeological Science at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens with Professor Amanda Gaggioli (2023) and continued geoarchaeology work in Iklaina Archaeological Project with Professor Amanda Gaggioli (2024). She looks forward to spending the summer of 2025 working on an archaeological dig at Despotiko on Paros, a Cycladic sanctuary dedicated to the god Apollo. Post graduation she is going to the graduate school.
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Brown Classical Journal, Editor (2023-2024)
Eastern Boetia Archaeological Project (via Brown SPRINT/UTRA), ASCSA Malcolm H. Wiener Laboratory for Archaeological Science (2023)
Iklaina Archaeological Project (2024)
Excavation at Despotiko, Paros (2025)
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Livia Hofman
A.B. Classics (Latin) & Egyptology and Assyriology, Departmental HonorsThesis Thesis: “Sound, Symbol, and Culture: The Sistra of Early Crete”Livia is from Illinois. She received an A.B. in both Classics and Egyptology and Assyriology. Her academic interests center on the convergences of her two fields of study and operate in analyses of the ancient Mediterranean world from a “hybridized” perspective. She looks forward to continuing her studies and further developing as a scholar in the Ph.D. program of Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World at the University of Pennsylvania, which she will begin this August.
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Brown Journal of History, Editorial Staff (2023-2024)
Department of Egyptology and Assyriology, DUG Leader (2023-2025)
Brown University Women’s Wrestling Club, Co-Founder and Co-President (2023-2025)
Brown Classical Journal, Editorial Staff (2021-2025) & Editor in Chief (2023-2025)
Loyola University of Chicago’s John Felice Rome Center (JFRC), Summer semester abroad (2022)
American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), Summer Session (2023)
ASCSA Summer Seminar (2024)
ASCSA Malcolm H. Wiener Laboratory for Archaeological Science (2024)
Joukowsky Institute Research Apprenticeship (2024)
The Minnie Helen Hicks Thesis on a Greek Topic Prize (2025)
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Rachel Kamphaus
A.B. Classics, Magna Cum LaudeExtracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Lucius Lyon Prize in Latin (2025)
Rib of Brown, Managing Editor (2024-2025)
Brown Classical Journal, Editor in Chief (2023-2025)
Brown Alumni Magazine (2023-2025)
Fulbright Award
President Francis Wayland Prize in Latin (2022)
Lafayette Sabine Foster Prize in Greek, Third Prize (2023)
Research at Brown Grant (2023)
Helen Terry MacLeod Research Award (November 2024)
Silver CASE Award, for “Vintage Style” in the Brown Alumni Magazine (June 2024)
Pembroke Center Undergraduate Fellowship (2024-2025)
Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA) (Spring 2024)
Preston Gurney Prize in Cultural Criticism, 2nd Place (Spring 2025)
Lucius Lyon Prize in Latin (2025)
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Faith S. Kim
A.B. Classics & Sc.B. Chemistry (Chemical Biology)Faith is from California. She is a dual concentrator in Classics and Chemistry on the Chemical Biology track. She performed research within both fields working under the guidance of Professor Rubenstein and Professor Bodel on protein dynamics and the US Epigraphy Project, respectively. She served as a Chemistry UTA for six semesters and editor for the Brown Classical Journal for three years. After graduation, Faith will continue research work in Bethesda, MD during her gap year before medical school. Faith would like to extend her sincerest gratitude to her professors, family, and friends for making her time in college so academically insightful and overwhelmingly wonderful.
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Sigma Xi
Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA), Chemistry (Summer 2023)
UTRA, Classics (Spring 2024)
Junior Prize in Chemistry (2024)
Uhlig Award for Excellence as an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (2024)
Clapp Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis (2025)
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Meleah Neely
A.B. Classics (Latin) & Political Science, Magna Cum Laude & Departmental HonorsThesis Inventing the Populus Romanus: Popular Political Culture and Autonomy in the Late Roman RepublicMeleah is from Boston, Massachusetts, receiving an A.B. in Classics (Latin track) with Honors and an A.B. in Political Science. Her research interests include political thought and intellectual history, using different theoretical frameworks to explore the intricacies of identity, agency, and collective memory. In addition to her work as a Classics DUG co-leader for the past two academic years, she has served as an editor and contributor to the Brown Classical Journal from 2022-2025. Outside of the Classics Department, she has done immense work for Campus Life, working with the Gender and Sexuality Peer Counselor Program for the past three years with the Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender and the LGBTQ Center. She also facilitated workshops on gender-based violence as a Sexual Assault Prevention Educator. In her free time, she enjoys watching late 90s/ early 2000s movies, reading horror books, and maintains a yoga practice. After graduation, Meleah plans to return to education and facilitation work as a teacher at an independent school. She is grateful for everyone who has turned Macfarlane House into a Macfarlane “Home” for her over the past four years.
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Phi Beta Kappa
Brown Classical Journal, Editor and Contributor (2022-2025)
Gender and Sexuality Peer Counselor Program Coordinator (2023-2025)
Classics DUG Leader (2023-2025)
Sidney E. Frank Scholarship (2021)
The Gates Scholarship (2021)
Summer SPRINT Award (2023)
Summer Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA) (2024)
James Aldrich Pirce Prize (2025)
Rainbow Praxis Award (2025)
Alfred H. Joslin Award (2025)
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Giuseppe Presti
A.B. Classics & ArchaeologyGiuseppe is from Massachusetts. Giuseppe started his time at Brown with aims of completely different concentrations and after a few classes decided to study Archaeology and Classics. Throughout the years, his area of focus has included pre-roman Italy and the western Mediterranean particularly with a focus in intercultural interaction and hybridization, coming to fruition in his thesis, “Tides of Trade: Emporia in the Ancient Mediterranean.” During the summers he has excavated on the S’Urachi Project in Sardinia and the Upper Sabina Tiberina Project in central Italy. On campus, he has led the DigDUG, the Archaeological Illustration Club, engaged in several research projects as a member of the Presidential Scholars Program, has been active in several arts organizations such as Jazz Jams, and has engaged in curatorial work in both the Joukowsky and the Bell Gallery. After graduation he will be returning to the S’Urachi project with plans to pursue a graduate degree.
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:
JIAAW DUG (DigDUG), Leader
Archaeological Illustration Club, President
Presidential Scholars Program (2021-Present)
Undegraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA) (2022)
Lucius Lyon Summer Research Fund (2024)
UTRA (2025)
James Aldrich Pirce Prize (2025)
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Annika Reff
A.B. Classics, Departmental HonorsThesis The Diary of Medusa: Reimagining Myths of Rape and Transformation in Ovid’s MetamorphosesAnnika is from California. She is graduating with Honors in Classics from Brown University. Her senior thesis, “The Diary of Medusa”, reimagines Ovid’s myth through a contemporary lens, blending fiction and scholarship to explore trauma, voice, and institutional betrayal. In the fall, she will begin a master’s degree in Health, Medicine, and Society at the University of Cambridge. After that, she plans to pursue a career in law to advocate for more just and equitable food systems. She would like to thank the Classics Department for a wonderful four years.
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Samir Saeed
A.B. Classics, Magna Cum LaudeSamir is from Florida. Samir is a General Classics concentrator and is on the premedical track. During his time at Brown, he was an editor for the Brown Classical Journal and was a part of Brown Undergraduate Students for Hospice Volunteering, Medicine Meets Art, and the Grappling and Mixed Martial Arts club. Outside of this, he also enjoyed photographing nature and playing volleyball. After graduating, he will be returning to Tampa for a year to do oncology research at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute and volunteering before applying to medical school next spring.
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:
Phi Beta Kappa
Brown Undergraduate Students for Hospice Volunteering (2021-2025)
Brown Tutoring Corps (2021-2025)
CareFree Clinic (2021-2025)
Brown Classical Journal, Editor (2023-2025)
Brown Classical Journal, Contributor (2024-2025)
Medicine Meets Art (2024-2025)
Brown Formula Racing (2024-2025)
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Colin Sutter
A.B. Classics & ArchitectureColin is from Martinsville, New Jersey. At Brown, he concentrated in Classics and Architecture. After graduation, he will be pursuing a Master of Architecture at the Cornell University College of Art, Architecture, and Planning (AAP).
Extracurricular Activities and Achievements:Summer Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award) (UTRA) (2023)
Spring UTRA (2024)
Summer LINK (2024)
Cornell University Tui Pranich and Lucilo Peña Graduate Award (2025)
Brown University HIAA Best Architecture Honors Thesis Award (2025)
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Jean Marie Wanlass
A.B. Classics (Latin) & English, Magna Cum Laude & Departmental HonorsThesis Constructed Figures, Untold Realities: Tracing the Limits of the VilicaJean is from California. Jean concentrated in Classics (Latin Track) and English (Nonfiction Writing track). She is particularly interested in Roman social history and intersections of attitudes towards religion, class, gender, and the environment in antiquity. During her time at Brown, she was an editor for the Brown Classical Journal, a Student Encoder for the US Epigraphy Project, and studied abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Outside of the ancient world, she also worked as a Teaching Fellow for a National Education Equity Lab and as a Bruno Leader, and was involved with HOPE outreach. She would like to thank the Classics department for its support during these incredible four years, especially Professor Pucci, her first-year advisor, and Professor Bodel, her thesis advisor. After graduation, Jean will attend the MA program in Classics at Tulane University.
Extra-Curricular Activities and Achievements:
Phi Beta Kappa
Brown Classics Journal, Editor (2021- 2025)
Brown Classics Journal, Contributor (2023 - 2025)
College Hill Independent, Copy Editor/Editor (2022 - 2024)
Bruno Leader (2023 - 2025)
National Education Equity Lab, Teaching Fellow (2025)
HOPE Outreach (2024 - 2025)
UTRA Recipient (Summer 2023)
Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies Study Abroad (Spring 2024)
Ph.D. Recipients 2025
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Ella Grunberger-Kirsh
Dissertation ‘The Memory-Writers’: A Social and Intellectual History of Shorthand in Late AntiquityOriginally from the UK, Ella took her BA and Masters’ degrees in Classics at the University of Oxford, then moved to the USA to take up an appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics in a small liberal arts college in Vermont. During the Ph.D. program at Brown, she co-directed the Brown Late Antiquity Group (BLAG), bringing together researchers on late antiquity from across the University for monthly seminars, workshops, and events. While at Brown she has presented research at workshops and colloquia in Oxford, Exeter, Cambridge (US and UK), Leeds, Los Angeles, Houston, St. Louis, New York City, Philadelphia, and Vancouver. Her PhD dissertation explores how shorthand, a new technology of the late Roman empire, shaped the historical record that survives to us, and she investigates the intellectual worlds of the non-elite shorthand-writers who produced so many of the texts we rely upon. The research was made possible by the atmosphere of open, interdisciplinary inquiry that Brown fosters, the financial support of numerous research grants including the Chancellor Thomas Tisch Doctoral Fellowship and the Mary Isabel Sibley Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the superlative instruction of many Brown Faculty members, especially Professor Jonathan Conant, her doctoral advisor. A chapter from the dissertation has appeared in article format in the 'Journal of Roman Studies'. Since October 2024, Ella has been a Junior Research Fellow in Classics at Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge, where she is currently working on producing a monograph based on her dissertation.
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Lucy Anne McInerney
Dissertation Negative Creation: The Cost of Harmony in Claudian’s De Raptu ProserpinaeLucy has earned a PhD in Classics from Brown. She also holds an MPhil in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature from the University of Oxford and a BA in Classics from Dickinson College. Her dissertation considered the Late Antique poet Claudian's epic poem, De Raptu Proserpinae. She was the Sheridan Center Proctor for the 2023-2024 academic year, during which time she managed Brown’s undergraduate Writing Fellows program. In the summer of 2024, she accepted a job as the Assistant Director of the Writing Program and Norman M. Eberly Multilingual Writing Center at her alma mater, moving back to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she now lives with her husband and fellow Brown Classics PhD '25, Álvaro Pires, their cats Cato and Scaramouche, guinea pigs Truffle and Bean, and her Rhode Island born and bred quarter horse, Mijo.
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Álvaro-Enrique Otero Pires
Dissertation Habits of Mind from the Habits of Beasts: Grammar, Rhetoric, and Nature in the Greek PhysiologusAlvaro matriculated in 2007 at Santa Clara University. He spent the 2009-2010 academic year studying at the University of St. Andrews and graduated from Santa Clara University in 2011 with a BA in Classical Studies. He went on to pursue graduate study at the University of Arizona, where he earned an MA in Classics in 2014. That same year, he entered the Ph.D. program in Classics at Brown University. During the course of his graduate studies, Álvaro has presented papers at Harvard University (2014), Universität Trier (2019), and at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies (2020). In 2023, he published a portion of his dissertation research as a contribution to a peer-reviewed volume in the AKAN-Einzelschriften series for the working group Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption (AKAN). While completing his doctoral program, Álvaro has taught as an adjunct professor at Providence College (2022-2023) and Dickinson College (2024).
He will be an Adjunct Professor, First-Year Seminar Program, Dickinson College.
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Fiona E. Sappenfield
Dissertation Water in Seneca’s Natural QuestionsFiona is from Nashville, Tennessee. In 2016, she received her B.A. in Literae Humaniores from the University of Oxford. While pursuing her Ph.D. at Brown, she worked at the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, and acted as Latin proofreader for Furnace and Fugue (ed. Nummedal and Bilak). She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches film and literature.