Very excited to be co-sponsoring a major conference on climate and human responses during the Holocene, in Bern, June 2024. See under "lectures and conferences" or follow this link.
I was born in Champaign, IL and raised in Chicago. I studied History and Art History at the Ohio State University. I returned home and did my graduate work at The University of Chicago, specializing in Greco-Roman Egyptian history and languages. Ive taught at U Chicago, Princeton, and Stanford before arriving at Yale University in 2008.
My core historical focus remains Hellenistic history with particular focus on the legal and economic history of Ptolemaic Egypt. I have long been interested in how societies work. That includes governance, legal institutions, formation of markets, and the impact of new economic institutions (coinage, banking) on traditional socio-economic patterns in the ancient world. I still have a strong interest in Papyrology, the interpretation of ancient sources, and bringing to bear the historical social sciences, particularly Economic Sociology and economic and legal theory, to ancient history. My research continues to evolve.
My research focus over the last ten years has concentrated on historical climate change and its impact on human societies over the last 12,000 years. I am the PI of the US National Science foundation project: “Volcanism, Hydrology and Social Conflict: Lessons from Hellenistic and Roman-Era Egypt and Mesopotamia.”
My core historical focus remains Hellenistic history with particular focus on the legal and economic history of Ptolemaic Egypt. I have long been interested in how societies work. That includes governance, legal institutions, formation of markets, and the impact of new economic institutions (coinage, banking) on traditional socio-economic patterns in the ancient world. I still have a strong interest in Papyrology, the interpretation of ancient sources, and bringing to bear the historical social sciences, particularly Economic Sociology and economic and legal theory, to ancient history. My research continues to evolve.
My research focus over the last ten years has concentrated on historical climate change and its impact on human societies over the last 12,000 years. I am the PI of the US National Science foundation project: “Volcanism, Hydrology and Social Conflict: Lessons from Hellenistic and Roman-Era Egypt and Mesopotamia.”
Heading up a new route on Mt Bona, St Elias Range, Alaska