Betsy Bryan is the professor emerita of Egyptian art and archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, where she continues to teach and work with the Archaeological Museum. Betsy received her doctorate from Yale University’s Near Eastern Languages and Literatures Department and there established her lifelong interest in Egypt’s 18th dynasty and New Kingdom (ca. 1600–1069 B.C.E.) as she wrote her dissertation on Tutankhamun’s great-grandfather Thutmose IV. She was fortunate to join the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1986 and at the same time serve as co-curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Ancient Arts Department for the exhibition “Egypt’s Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep III and his World,” which traveled to the Louvre in Paris. In 2002 she organized an exhibition with the National Gallery of Art, “The Quest for Immortality,” borrowed entirely from Egypt, and it traveled in North America for seven years. 

In the field, Betsy directed the Johns Hopkins excavations at the Temple of the Goddess Mut from 2001 to 2023 and now co-directs a joint project with Liverpool University. Betsy's research there has studied the temple’s architecture and artifacts as well as cult rituals.

Betsy has published and contributed to numerous books in addition to those on Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III, and her familiarity with Thebes is deep and long. She has appeared in a number of documentaries and recently in the subscription series “Real Ancient Egypt” by Wondrium (formerly The Great Courses). Betsy has shared her passion for Egypt with the public throughout her career.