Charlee Mandy is a third-year student in the Classical Studies Ph.D. program. She is interested in 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 also studied at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (2022).
As a member of the Humanities Scholars Program at Cornell, she wrote an honors thesis titled "At Hearths and Thresholds: The Religious Lives of Slaves in Pompeian Households." This paper explored the roles of enslaved people in domestic ritual and their relationship to the Lares, deities that may have provided a substitutionary outlet for occluding complete reliance upon enslaved labor. Charlee’s MA thesis, “Sleeping Flasks, Waiting Lamps: Self-Reflexive Servile Objects of Ptolemaic Egypt,” examined Fayumic terracotta lantern- and flask-bearers, functional art creating by their very usage an unstable social embodiment of mastery and servility.
Charlee also works as a field archaeologist and in 2022-24 took part in the Marzuolo Archaeological Project (MAP) excavating a Roman rural crafting community. She gained experience in data recording and analysis, artifact processing, and trench excavation and supervision. In 2025, Charlee then worked at the APAHA Tibur Project (Hadrian’s Villa) on the “Macchiozzo,” a utilitarian and residential area used by the staff and later occupants of this unparalleled imperial site.
Charlee is interested in community-engaged work and excavated in 2021 with St. James AME Zion Church in Ithaca, NY, which was a stop on the Underground Railroad; she also works as an Outreach Coordinator for the Columbia Center for Archaeology.
Outside of her academic pursuits, Charlee loves writing her science fiction novel and painting landscapes.