Trudy Harrington Becker and Andrew Becker

Dr. Trudy Harrington Becker is Associate Chair of the Department of History, Virginia Tech where she teaches courses on Roman history and Greek history, as well as courses such as Modern Uses and Receptions of the Ancient World.   Trudy has an undergraduate degree from the College of the Holy Cross, earned a MA in Classics at the University of North Carolina, and Ph.D. in Roman Studies at the University of Florida. She also studied at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Trudy has published on the Classical Tradition in the United States, including many articles on classical education in the 19^th century. 

Dr. Andrew Becker, Associate Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, did his undergraduate education at the University of Michigan, earned a MA at Cambridge University (England), and received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Andrew also studied and worked at the Ionic Centre in Chios, Greece and has published numerous articles on Roman and Greek literature and culture as well as a book on Homer’s Iliad.  He teaches courses on Latin and Ancient Greek languages and literatures, English literature, and ancient Roman culture.  He currently serves as President of the Society of the Oral Reading of Greek and Latin Literature.

Dr. Trudy Harrington Becker and Dr. Andrew Becker have been frequent teaching faculty at Virginia Tech’s Center for European Studies and Architecture in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland.  For four years they served jointly as Organizers of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Spring Program in Switzerland (2006-2009).  Trudy and Andrew have led more than a dozen academic trips to Rome, including summer study abroad courses.  They teach together on campus as well; and last year taught a highly popular course on The Cities of Rome.   Both are award winning teachers, advisors and mentors. In addition, in 2013 Andrew and Trudy received their college’s Award for Excellence in International Initiatives, and in 2014 they jointly received the Virginia Tech Alumni Award for Excellence in International Education, the highest award that the university gives in this area. 

Rebecca Schindler

Rebecca K. Schindler is Professor of Classical Studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN. She teaches courses in Classical art and archaeology, Latin, Greek and Roman Mythology, and Classical literature. Rebecca has chaired the Department of Classical Studies at DePauw University and has served as the co-editor of the book reviews for The American Journal of Archaeology. Her research interests include the archaeology of Greek colonization in South Italy and Sicily, Greek religion, applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in archaeology, and the ethics of cultural heritage. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College in Classical and Near Eastern Art and Archaeology and her PhD from the University of Michigan in Classical Art and Archaeology. She has also studied at the American School for Classical Studies in Athens and worked as a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome. Rebecca's archaeological field experience includes projects in Tunisia, Cyprus, Turkey, and Italy. Since 2015 she has been working with Umbra Institute in Perugia on a field project at Castiglione del Lago on Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, Italy. She is finishing a book on sanctuaries of Aphrodite in Italy and Sicily. She currently serves as the president of the Central Indiana Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the co-PI of the Collaboratory for GIS and Mediterranean Archaeology. Outside of her professional life, Rebecca is passionate about Italian food and enjoys exploring traditional markets and learning new recipes.

Janet Duncan Jones

Janet Duncan Jones is Professor of Classics at Bucknell University. She received her B.A. in Latin from the College of William and Mary and her M.A. and Ph.D. in classical archaeology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Janet is an active field archaeologist specializing in Greek and Roman art and architecture, ancient urbanization, ancient technology with a focus on ancient glass production, and environmental history. Her publications focus on ancient technology and the impact of those technologies on ancient landscapes. Her current research focuses on the impact of the Moors in southern Spain on urbanism, architecture, technology, and intellectual history. Janet is full of stories from her extensive travels in the Mediterranean and Middle East and from over 20 years of archaeological field work in Greece at Athens and Corinth, in Turkey at Gordion and Gritille Hoyuk, in Tunisia at Carthage, and in Jordan at el-Lejjun, Humayma, and Aqaba.

Joanne Ferraro

Joanne Ferraro (PhD UCLA) is the Albert W. Johnson Distinguished Professor of History Emerita at San Diego State University.  Her courses cover the ancient Greek and Roman world as well as medieval, Renaissance, and early modern northern and southern Europe. She is especially interested in Europe’s cross-cultural and global connections with greater Asia and the Americas.  Joanne has published books with Cambridge, Oxford, and Johns Hopkins University presses with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Joanne is the General Editor for Bloomsbury Academic’s six- volume Cultural History of Marriage from Antiquity to the Present.  She has lectured on cruises to Northern and Southern Europe as well as the Caribbean for the past decade. Joanne has lived in Europe for extensive periods and has taught European history for 35 years.