DR. ELIZABETH FISHER (eaf @ gwu.edu), Professor of Classics and former chair of the department, teaches courses on Greek and Latin language, literature, and culture and specializes in the survival, reception, and reinterpretation of classical literature through translation and imitation, especially in the medieval Greek literary tradition of Byzantium. She has presented papers and published articles on this topic in the U.S. and Europe and has herself translated the "Life of the Patriarch Nikephoros" in Defenders of the Images (Dumbarton Oaks1998). She has also published the Greek text of orations on holy subjects by the 11th-century Byzantine polymath Michael Psellos and written an original mock-epic starring a wandering parrot ("Epic Parrot/ Parrot Epic: The Parrodyssey," Classical Outlook 1988). Recipient of the BA in Classics from Northwestern University and the MA and PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard University, she has been awarded fellowships at The Center for Hellenic Studies and Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies.

DR. ELISE FRIEDLAND (efried @ gwu.edu), Assistant Professor of Classics and of Art History, holds a BA in Classics from Williams College and an MA and PhD in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan. Before coming to GWU, she taught at Rollins College (Winter Park, FL) for ten years. A specialist in Roman art and archaeology, Roman sculpture, the Roman Near East, and museum studies, she serves as the sculpture specialist for the Excavations at the Sanctuary of Pan at Caesarea Philippi/Banias in Israel and for the site of Jerash in Jordan. Her co-edited book, entitledThe Sculptural Environment of the Roman Near East: Reflections on Culture, Ideology, and Power, has just been published by Peeters Press in Belgium (2008).

Dr. ANDREW M. SMITH II (amsii @ gwu.edu), Assistant Professor of Classics, holds a PhD in History from the University of Maryland. He specializes in the social and cultural history of the Greek and Roman Near East, in particular the interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in urban and rural settings. His current research concentrates in Syria, where he is examining social transformations and urban development at the oasis city of Palmyra during the Roman period. Dr. Smith is also an active field archaeologist, having worked on surveys and excavations in Greece, Austria, Israel, and Jordan, where he has worked since 1989. Currently, he directs the excavations and survey of the Roman fort at Bir Madhkur (as part of his larger Bir Madhkur Project), a site that also served as the first major caravan stop west of Petra on the ancient Spice Route. The Bir Madhkur Project itself is an extension of Dr. Smith’s Wadi Araba Archaeological Research Project (http://waarp.tripod.com), which began in 1996, the goal of which is to synthesize current knowledge of the Araba’s physical and cultural landscape in both Israel and southern Jordan and to expand upon this knowledge by supporting further archaeological research in the Araba valley. The author of several articles, Dr. Smith is currently writing a monograph about his work in Syria.

DR. JOHN ZIOLKOWSKI , Professor Emeritus of Classics at George Washington University, received his BA in Greek from Duke University in 1958 and his Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1963. After teaching at Randolph-Macon Woman's College for three years, he came to GWU in 1967. He has served as Chairman of his Department (1971-1988; and several annual appointments since then), President of the Washington Classical Society (1972-74) and of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (1993-94). In addition to working on various aspects of classical influence on the architecture of Washington, D. C., he has published articles on Greek and Roman literature, Roman music, and Plato's Symposium. During the 2004-2005 school year, he prepared two groups of students to give lectures on classical influences at the Lincoln Memorial for junior high students from Richmond, Va. (Oct. 13 and 21); conducted a bus tour of Classical Washington, DC for visiting FBI delegation from Mauritius (April 3) and a walking tour of classical DC for visiting Dean's Scholars from Chile (April 23). He conducted a "second annual" tour in 2006 for the same program of Dean's Scholars (April 15).