AN INTERDISCIPLINARY AND INTERDEPARTMENTAL PROGRAM AT COLUMBIA

Mary-Evelyn Farrior

Mary-Evelyn is a Ph.D. candidate in the Classical Studies program. Her dissertation, "Mapping Greek Inscriptions in Imperial Rome,” examines foreign communities in the landscape of imperial Rome through the Greek inscriptions they produced. As part of her research, Mary-Evelyn has topographically recontextualized the Greek inscriptions of Rome by mapping their known provenience using ArcGIS; the resulting maps have revealed epigraphic clusters in the neighborhoods of the Esquiline, the Fora, and Trastevere that indicate the presence of foreign communities organized around athletics, commerce, and religion, respectively. The content and archaeological provenience of these inscriptions reveal not only the existence of otherwise unattested communities, but also their organization, their continuation over multiple generations, and the physical spaces they occupied in Rome.

Mary-Evelyn is currently an Excavation Supervisor at the Pompeii I.14 Project. She previously excavated at Villa Adriana in Tivoli with Columbia’s Advanced Program in Ancient History and Art (APAHA) for four seasons, serving as Trench Supervisor in 2021. She has also excavated with the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project in Sicily (2015–2016), and the Sant’Omobono Project in Rome (2014). Interested in archaeological methodologies across chronological and geographic contexts, Mary-Evelyn excavated at the Moche site of Pañamarca, Peru, with Dr. Lisa Trever in the summer of 2019.

At Columbia, Mary-Evelyn has taught elementary and introductory Latin courses and has served as a teaching assistant for a variety of courses related to the ancient world. In spring 2022, as a GSAS Teaching Scholar, she designed and taught a seminar, entitled “Space and Society in the Roman World,” that explored Roman social history through architecture. She served as the Lead Teaching Fellow for Classical Studies from 2020–2021 and was a finalist for the Columbia Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2022.

Outside of Columbia, Mary-Evelyn can most often be found in Riverside Park with her dog Vivace. Email Mary-Evelyn Farrior.