Charlotte (Charlee) Mandy is a fourth-year student in the Classical Studies Ph.D. program, studying Roman material culture and social history, particularly that of slavery, religion, and daily life for non-elites. Charlee earned her B.A. from Cornell University (2023, summa cum laude) and studied at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (2022).
In Cornell’s Humanities Scholars Program, she wrote an honors thesis that explored the religious lives of enslaved people in Pompeian households. Charlee’s MA thesis, “Sleeping Flasks, Waiting Lamps: Self-Reflexive Servile Objects of Ptolemaic Egypt,” examined Fayumic terracotta lanterns and flasks that create by their own usage an unstable embodiment of mastery and servility. Her dissertation project will trace the religious practices of mining and quarrying communities around the Roman Empire.
As a field archaeologist, in 2022-24 Charlee participated in the Marzuolo Archaeological Project (MAP) excavating a Roman rural crafting community. In 2025 and 2026, she worked at the APAHA Tibur Project (Hadrian’s Villa) on the “Macchiozzo,” an area seemingly used by the staff and later occupants of this unparalleled imperial site.
Charlee is committed to community-engaged work and outreach initiatives. She excavated in 2021 with St. James AME Zion Church in Ithaca, NY, a stop on the Underground Railroad. Charlee is currently the Outreach Coordinator for the Columbia Center for Archaeology, facilitating events for K-12 students in NYC. She also collaborates with The Ancient Graffiti Project, a digital resource to broaden access to traces of everyday life in antiquity.
Outside of her academic pursuits, Charlee is finishing up her science fiction novel and painting landscapes outdoors.