Below are profiles of students currently enrolled in the Ph.D. Program in Classics.
Click here for recent alumni
Roberto P. Bongiovanni is in his 4th year of doctoral studies. He took his BA at theUniversity of Toronto in Classics and Italian Studies and later took a degree in education. He has taught high school Latin for six years in both Toronto and New York. He currently teaches Latin and Italian in Great Neck, New York. His interests include Ancient Greek and Latin literature, private antiquities, and ancient medicine.
Email: rbongiovanni@gc.cuny.edu
Johanna Braff is a third year doctoral student. Before coming to the graduate center, she received her BA in Greek and Latin at Swarthmore College, a Post-Baccalaureate in Classics at the University of Pennsylvania and her MA in Classics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also received the 2008 Teaching Assistant award. Johanna has taught extensively classes in Mythology and Greek literature in translation at the University of Maryland where she wrote an MA thesis on animal similes and their reflection of the role and status of women in both Homer's Odyssey and Aeschylus' Agamemnon. Her present interests are women in Greek literature, predominantly in Tragedy and Greek Lyric Poetry and she recently gave a paper on Ovid's Heroides at the University of Toronto's Graduate conference entitled Engendering Perception. Currently, she is a teaching fellow at Brooklyn College and an adjunct Professor at Lehman College.
Email: lilbraff@gmail.com
Michael Coon is a third-year doctoral student. Before coming to the Grad Center, he got his BA in Classical Civilization from NYU, completed CUNY's Greek Institute, and then studied in the Post-Baccalaureate Program in Classics at Columbia University for a year and a half. Michael has served on the Library Committee and is currently serving on the Faculty Membership Committee. He is also currently a teaching fellow at Brooklyn College where he teaches classical literature in translation. He recently presented a paper on Horace's Satires 1.9 at the Duke-UNC Graduate Colloquium. His scholarly interests include Greek literature, Roman satire, and Greek and Latin linguistics.
Email: mac718@gmail.com
Emyr Dakin is a second-year doctoral student who received his BA in Classical Studies from
Swansea University in the UK. Emyr's academic interests include classical mythology,
fiction, and history, with an emphasis on the Hellenistic period.
In April 2011, Emyr presented a paper at the Princeton Graduate Student Colloquium on
Greek fiction. In October 2011, he is scheduled to present a paper on Longus' Daphnis
and Chloe at the CAAS conference.
Emyr teaches Classical Mythology in the College Now program at Queens College and
the Greek and Latin Roots of English at Hunter College.
Email: edakin@gc.cuny.edu
Sarah Derbew is a first-year doctoral student. As an undergraduate, she studied
abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome and
attended the Latin/Greek Institute at CUNY Graduate Center. Her
undergraduate thesis discussed the role of poor girls in the Roman
Empire. Puzzled by the depiction of poor girls on Trajan's arch in
Beneventum, she wrote about the role of imperial munificence as a
political tool. After receiving her B.A. in Latin from Haverford College
in 2009, she spent a wonderful year working at Parkway NW High School
for Peace and Social Justice in Philadelphia. Her present interests
include the African, especially Ethiopian, presence in the Roman Empire
and Roman social history. In her free time, she likes to tap dance,
study Swahili, and watch Bollywood movies.
Email: sderbew@gc.cuny.edu
Michael Goyette is a Ph.D. student who received his B.A. in Classical Studies: Greek from
Vassar College. At the Graduate Center, Michael's research interests include Greek tragedy,
epic poetry, studies of genre and literary innovation (particularly in the works of Theocritus
and Apuleius), cultural syncretism, and ancient medical ideologies. He has also honed his
knowledge of ancient history and material culture by participating in the 2011 Summer Session
of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
In March 2010, Michael had an article published in the Journal of Ancient Egyptian
Interconnections entitled "Ptolemy II Philadelphus and the Dionysiac Model of Political
Authority". He has also presented research papers at recent conferences held by the University
of Pennsylvania, the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, and the Classical Association
of Canada. In January 2012, he will be presenting a paper about the pedagogical training of
graduate students in Classics at the annual meeting of the American Philological Association.
Michael has also organized graduate student conferences that have brought speakers from
across the country and abroad together at the Graduate Center. He was the chair of the
conference "Living on the Edge: Liminality in Classical Antiquity" in April 2010, and followed
up this successful endeavor by co-chairing the conference "Spes et Ratio Studiorum: Education
in the Classical World" in May 2011.
Besides cultivating his scholarly interests, Michael regularly teaches a core curriculum course on
Greek and Roman literature and culture at Brooklyn College. There he has also taught courses
on Greek and Roman mythology. His teaching efforts at Brooklyn College were recognized in
May 2011 with the Eileen Barbara Costas Contes Memorial Prize for exceptional pedagogy. In
addition, Michael has taught at the City College of New York, including an introductory Latin
language course and a course entitled The Greek and Latin Roots of the English Language.
To refine his teaching skills, he frequently attends pedagogical seminars focused on finding
methods to inform and engage diverse groups of students. Michael is also very involved in
governance issues pertaining to the Graduate Center's Classics Department, having served as
the student representative on the Library Committee from 2007-2008 and as one of two student
representatives on the Department's Executive Committee from 2009 to 2011.
Email: migoyette@gmail.com
Timothy Hanford is a doctoral candidate in classics. His current research focus is on issues of torture and excess in Neronian literature, in particular in Seneca's tragedies and in Lucan. Tim has recently presented papers entitled "Antony's Desecration of the Domus in Cicero's Second Philippic" (Boston University, 2011), "The Migrant Killer in Homer" (University of Pennsylvania, 2011) and "Caesar and the Paradox of Peace in Lucan's Bellum Civile" (ACL Institute, 2010). He has attended the summer programs of both the American Academy in Rome (2003) and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2009). Tim currently teaches at Brooklyn College and Hunter College. He also has 10 years of experience teaching high-school Latin in Brooklyn, having obtained permanent New York State public school teacher certification in Latin grades 7-12. He received a BA in Classics from NYU and an MAT in Latin at Hunter College.
Email: thanford@gc.cuny.edu
Tristan Husby is a first year doctoral student. He graduated from Connecticut College in 2009 with a BA in Classics. His academic interests are philosophy, war, slavery, the formation and dissolution of ancient societies.
Email: tristan.husby@gmail.com
Benjamin Joffe is enrolled in the master's program after a year and a half of post-baccalaureate studies at Columbia University. He earned a B.A. in History from Yeshiva University, where he joined Eta Sigma Phi, the national Classics honorary society, and was eventually elected their national president in his senior year. In order to gain entrance, Benjamin translated The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band into Latin, gaining international media attention. He has taught Latin at The Marymount School and through The Middlebridge Exchange in Manhattan. His scholarly interests include early Roman history and Late Antiquity.
Email: benjijoffe@yahoo.com
Aramis Lopez is a second-year doctoral student. He received a B.A. in Human
Ecology (concentration in Philosophy) at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor,
Maine, and a second B.A. in Classics and Philosophy at the University of Southern
Maine. He is currently a teaching fellow at Hunter College, as well as one of the co-
chairs of the 2011 Classics Graduate Student Conference, "Spes et Ratio Studiorum:
Education in the Classical World." He also serves on the Executive Committee and
as the Classics representative in the Doctoral Students Council. His interests include
Plato, Epicurus, and Hellenistic poetry and philosophy.
Email: aramisllopez@gmail.com
Jeremy March is a fourth-year doctoral student. He received a B.A. in Classics and Philosophy from Mary Washington College. He has attended summer intensive classes in Greek at the University of Texas at Austin, in Latin at the University of Virginia, and in upper-level Latin at the City University of New York. Jeremy's main interests include Greek language and linguistics, Greek literature, and applications of technology in the humanities. He created the website philolog.us (formerly known as dendrea.org) which is an interface to the Greek and Latin lexica hosted by the Perseus Project. He teaches Queens College and Brooklyn College.
Email: jmarch@gc.cuny.edu
Email: mmarturano@gc.cuny.edu
Irene Morrison-Moncure is a first year PhD student. She received her BA in Classics
from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, graduating in 2011 Phi Beta Kappa.
As an undergraduate, she completed an honors thesis on Latin pedagogy at the college
level and presented a paper on the Vestal Virgins on site at the Aedes Vestae in Rome.
Her interests include the Greek Romances, Latin pedagogy, and epic poetry, as well as
BBC dramas, discovering new music, and exploring New York City. She also serves as
the Assistant Director of Student Programs for the Ascanius Youth Classics Institute.
Email: irmorrisonmonc@gmail.com
Nathan Oglesby is a first year MA student. He got himself a BA in Latin at Western Washington University in a town called Bellingham. His chief concerns are poetry & music & philosophy, especially such as they constitute for him an inextricably bound spiritual discipline. He raps and makes movies, though hardly in a conspicuous capacity at this time. But that'll change. More immediately relevant, he wrote a paper once that he read at a Willamette University classics conference, which consisted of identifying analogues between Greek and Roman lyric poetry and American hip-hop. He promises more to come on this tip.
Email: nathandoglesby@gmail.com
Cameron Pearson is a 6th year Ph.D. student writing a dissertation on archaic Greek elegy
and its relation to epigraphy. His most recent paper, "Different Ideologies of Retreat in
the Iliad and Archaic Elegy," was delivered at the 2010 fall meeting of CAAS. In 2009-
2010 Cameron was a regular member of the American School of Classical Studies at
Athens. In March of 2010 he was a short-term fellow at the American Research Center
in Sofia and in May he took part in the ASCSA excavations of 'the Byzantine House'
in Ancient Corinth. He is also the English translator of an Archaeological guide to
Durrës, Albania, Artemis à Dyrrhachion: Guides de Durres 1. Before beginning at the
Graduate Center, he lived in Paris while studying linguists and comparative literature
at l'Université Paris Diderot and received his B.A. in literature from the New School
University here in New York.
Email: cpearson@gc.cuny.edu
Email: nathaniel.ralston@gmail.com
David K. Sage is a second-year doctoral student. He received his B.A. in Latin and Greek from Hunter College in 2009 (Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa). Prior to attending Hunter, David studied Latin and Greek at Vassar College. David's main interests include ancient linguistics, metrics, and ancient humor.
Email: dsage@gc.cuny.edu
Email: jsimard@gc.cuny.edu
Email: asumler@gc.cuny.edu
Alissa Vaillancourt is a 4th year Ph.D. student who received a B.A. from College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA). As an undergraduate, she attended the College Year in Athens study abroad program in Athens, Greece. After graduating from Holy Cross, she taught English as a second language in Rome, Italy for one year, and, as the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, she returned to Rome in 2005 in order to attend the American Academy in Rome Summer Classical Program. Currently, she is a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Brooklyn College. Her scholarly interests include ancient Greeks in the Roman world, Hellenistic poetry, and social history.
Email: availlancourt@gc.cuny.edu
Maura K. Williams came to CUNY after a summer at the American Academy in Rome's Classical Summer School with a BA in French and Classics from the University of Vermont and an MA in Classics from the University of Oregon. She has taught Latin and French in public and private secondary schools and has also been an adjunct at Queens College for the summer Classical Mythology course. Scholarly interests include Hellenistic and Roman Epigram and Elegy, Papyrology and intertextual studies. She is currently working on her dissertation: "Homeric Diction in Posidippus."
Email: MWilliams2@gc.cuny.edu
Profiles for the following students are pending.
RECENT ALUMNI
Email: mbroder@mbroder.com
Paul McBreen received his Ph. D. on Feb. 1, 2012. The title of his dissertation is Ktiseis/Aitia in Various Ancient Greek Prose Authors. He will attend the Summer Institute for Greek Palaeography at Lincoln College, Oxford during August of 2012. He is currently researching Platonic and Demosthenic scholia, and lexica from late antiquity. He is employed as a Substitute Assistant Professor of English at Hostos Community College, CUNY, where he would like to become a tenured faculty member.
Email: pmcbreen@gc.cuny.edu
Email: gtsouva@ilstu.edu
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