Current Grad Students in Classics

Kate Barnes

Kate is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. Her scholarly interests include later Latin poetry (from Lucan to Sedulius). In her work, she focuses on depictions of bodies in poetry as well as the inheritance of Classics within Late Antiquity. She received her M.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 2017 with a thesis entitled “The Anthropophagic Epic: Cannibalism, Poetics, and the Poet(s) of Statius’ Thebaid.” Her interests also include the inheritance of classics and the materiality of reading, and in the fall of 2021, she was curator of an exhibit at Bryn Mawr entitled “Private Lives of Old Books.” She is currently working on her dissertation while teaching Latin at Hackley School.

Felix Bieneman

Felix Bieneman is an M.A. student in the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. Felix received a B.A. in 2020 from the institute formerly known as Marlboro College. As part of this degree, Felix produced a full translation of Sophocles' Antigone, which was workshopped at the Middlebury Bread Loaf Translator's Conference in 2022 and now languishes on Google Drive in a largely unedited state. When school is not in session, Felix also leads reading groups on various ancient texts with the Catherine Project. At Bryn Mawr, Felix hopes to continue working with Greek tragedy, especially as it relates to real-world generational cycles of illness, trauma, and abuse.

Mallory Fitzpatrick

Mallory is a doctoral candidate in the department of Greek, Latin and Classical Studies. She received her B.A. in classical languages and professional writing from John Carroll University in 2019, and in 2022 she received her M.A. from Bryn Mawr College with a thesis on Ascanius in the Aeneid. Her dissertation focuses on the intersection of humor and horror in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses while her broader research interests include the supernatural in the ancient world and Greek myth, especially its reception in contemporary retellings. She has also worked with Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections on a number of projects and remains deeply interested in the material culture of the classics, from archaeology to incunabula.  

Stella Fritzell

Stella is a 2024-25 AAUW American Fellow and PhD candidate in the department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. She received her BA from Carleton College in 2015, and her MA from Bryn Mawr College in 2019 with a thesis entitled “Atalanta as a Repoussoir for Erotic & Competitive Ephebic Excellence”. Her dissertation examines local focalizations of myths about so-called enemy groups and proposes three ways in which these stories would have resonated with subaltern populations. In addition to myth, her research interests broadly include narratology, performance, landscape theory, and classical art. Stella is also engaged in digital scholarship programs at and beyond Bryn Mawr, Greek and Latin tutoring, and martial arts instruction. 

Reya George

Reya George is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. She received her B.A. in Classical Civilization from the University of Michigan in 2018, an M.A. in Classical Studies from McGill University in 2020, and an M.A. in Classical Studies from Bryn Mawr College in 2023 with a thesis entitled “Shooting for the Moon: Cosmology and Ὁμοίωσις Θεῷ Reimagined in Plutarch’s De Facie.” Her research interests include ancient notions of cosmology, portrayals of the soul in poetry and prose, interpretations of classical and Platonic myths, and narratives of “alien” spaces such as the distant past and the afterlife.

Jenni Glaser

Michael Kriege

Michael Kriege is an M.A. student in the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. He received his B.A. in Classical Studies from the University of Chicago in 2018. In 2020 he completed a post-baccalaureate program in Classics at UCLA. He is interested in ancient magic and religion and how authors interact with it in their texts.

Devin Lawson

Devin Lawson is a PhD candidate in the department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. She received her BA in Mathematics with a minor in Classical Studies from Coe College in 2019 and her MA from Bryn Mawr College in 2022 with a thesis entitled "Dismembered According to the Rigor of Harmony: A Structuralist Reading of Zosimos' Visions." Devin spent the 2023-2024 academic year as a Regular Member at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Her research centers primarily on epistolography and Late Antique religion, especially patristics, and she is currently writing a dissertation on the letters of Jerome of Stridon. Her other research interests include ancient religion and magic, epic poetry, cultural poetics, and the Bay of Naples. Devin has worked on excavations at Lechaion as part of the Lechaion Harbor and Settlement Land Project and at Corinth with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Seth Levin

Seth is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. He graduated from Dickinson College in 2019 with a B.A. in Classical Studies, and wrote his honors thesis concerning Caesar’s narratology in his Commentaries. In January 2024, Seth received an M.A. from Bryn Mawr with a thesis entitled “A Pig among the Dogs: Reading the Gryllus through a Cynic Lens”. Currently, Seth is completing his preliminaries, the topics of which are Lucian and Philosophy, Ovid’s Exilic Poetry, Metempsychosis in Ancient Thought, and Seneca’s Epistulae Morales.

Izzy Martin

Izzy Martin graduated from Texas A&M University in 2016 with a degree in Classics. They earned their MPhil in Classics from Trinity College Dublin in 2021, focusing their dissertation on dreams in Homer's Odyssey. Izzy's research interests encompass dreams, monsters, demons, and horror in the ancient world, as well as their reception in the modern era. They are particularly intrigued by the unique relationship between humans and the monsters they encounter in literature and stories, especially those who find solace and comfort in relating to these creatures.
Outside of academia, Izzy enjoys adventuring with their dog, Perseus, exploring the fantasy worlds of books and video games, and finding magic in everyday life.

Caelie McRobert

Caelie McRobert is a graduate student in the department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. Her research interest is in combining Classics and Social Psychology research. She received her B.A. from Vassar College in Greek and Roman Studies with a research focus on rhetoric and meter used for depictions of women in Augustan Era poetry. She then worked at a research assistant in the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition department at Northwestern University in Dr. Paul Reber’s lab studying implicit memory. Most recently, she received her master’s degree from Ball State University in Social Psychology with a focus on gender bias in language. She now hopes to bring psychology knowledge and methodology back into her Classical research to understand historic depictions of women, enslaved individuals, and LGBTQ+ individuals in a new light.

Dalton Sala

Dalton Sala received his B.A. in Latin from Hillsdale College (2020) and his M.A. in Classics from Bryn Mawr College (2022). Though his first publication defended a traditional reading of Vergil's ninth Eclogue, Dalton's research interests have crept ever later: thus his M.A. thesis explored how Jerome's biblical prefaces propagandize an authoritative translation of "Hebraica ueritas." Currently he is researching the construction of otium liberale in the philosophical writings of Cicero, Augustine, and Boethius. When Dalton is not reading, he dabbles in spoken Latin and verse composition. Having taught students of various ages, he is also passionate about Greek & Latin pedagogy. In his non-academic time, Dalton loves to hike, play guitar, and read classic novels.

Mary Somerville

Mary is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. She received her B.A. in Latin in 2015 from Wake Forest University. She received her M.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 2017 with a thesis entitled "Seditio and Civil War: Mutiny and Loyalty in Lucan's Pharsalia." She is currently finishing her dissertation, which focuses on men's tears in Roman epic poetry, and teaching Latin at Stratford Academy.

Sophia Tobár

Sophia Ophelia Tobár is a PhD student of Classics at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, USA. Her research explores religious transformations in late antiquity, cultural encounters in the Greek and Roman east, the margins of the ancient world, and Neoplatonic and Epicurean philosophy.