Fall 2024 News and Events
Fall 2024 News and Events
Junior Fellow Chelsea Cohen named a Marguerite Bartlett Hamer Fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies academic year 2024–2025
Junior Fellow Arielle Hardy awarded an RA fellowship for the 2024–2025 academic year working with Senior Fellow Meg Kassabaum in support of Heritage West, the West Philadelphia community archaeology project
Junior Fellow Cianna Jackson named a 2024 Dean’s Scholar
Junior Fellow Brigitte Keslinke awarded the 2025 Samuel H. Kress Foundation/Donald and Maria Cox Rome Prize Fellow in Ancient Studies, American Academy in Rome
Junior Fellow Chrislyn Laurore receives Greenewalt fellowship
Junior Fellow Moriah McKenna awarded an RA fellowship with Heritage West for academic year 2024–2025
Fellow Ben Abbott accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor at Skidmore College
Fellow Darren Ashby joined the American Society of Overseas Research as Programs Manager of ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives
Fellow Deborah Deliyannis, a 2024–2025 National Humanities Center Fellow, awarded the Allen W. Clowes Fellowship
Fellow Reed Goodman accepted a tenure track research position at Clemson University as Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Science at the Baruch Institute for Coastal Ecology and Forestry Science, Clemson University
Fellow Stephanie Hagan accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College
Fellow Sam Holzman awarded Princeton’s Jonathan Edwards Bicentennial Preceptorship and named director of the Program in Archaeology at Princeton University
Fellow Bret Langendorfer accepted a position as Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University
Fellow Leslee Michelsen appointed Director of the National Museum of American Diplomacy at the US Department of State in Washington DC
Fellow Bryan K. Miller published Xiongnu: The World’s First Nomadic Empire, Oxford Studies in Early Empires
Fellow Kasey Diserens Morgan holds the position of Adjunct Lecturer in Anthropology at Salve Regina University as well as at the University of Delaware
Fellow Justin Reamer accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at Bowdoin College
Fellow John Sigmier accepted a post-doctural fellowship in the Department of Classics at University of Toronto
Fellow Julia Simons accepted a tenure track position as Assistant Professor in Classical and Integrated Liberal Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fellow Anna Sitz won the First Book Award of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS) for Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers: The Afterlives of Temples and Their Texts in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean
Fellow Robert Vigar holds an Adjunct position in the Department of Anthropology at Pace University in New York
Senior Fellow Richard M. Leventhal, Executive Director of Penn Museum’s Penn Cultural Heritage Center, announced the “Museums: Missions and Acquisitions (M2A) Project,” a three-year national study providing a framework for future collecting decisions of U.S. museums
Senior Fellow Kathleen Morrison published Forests, Foragers, and Empires: Socionatural Histories of Southern India
Senior Fellow Holly Pittman appointed Honorary Research Associate of the McDonald Institute at the University of Cambridge
Senior Fellow C. Brian Rose named a Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton
Senior Fellow Emeritus Ralph Rosen elected President of the Society for Classical Studies
Senior Fellow Tom Tartaron co-edited The Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project 1: Landscape, Architecture, and Material Culture (Hesperia Supplement, 54)
Featured Research
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Heritage West is a community-informed archaeological project created with the goal of using archaeology to highlight the stories of individuals who lived in the Black Bottom neighborhood of West Philadelphia from the 19th century to the present. Through the Heritage West Project, we strive to highlight the love, community, and humanity of the Black Bottom…… Read More…
Kolb 2024 Graduates
Recently graduated Kolb Junior Fellows celebrated at the Kolb Dinner on September 20, 2024. Robert Vigar, Samantha Seyler, Kasey Diserens Morgan, and John Sigmier (pictured at right) along with Justin Reamer (not pictured) defended their dissertations this past year and graduated to become Fellows of the Kolb Society.
Robert Vigar (ANTH) defended his dissertation “DISPOSSESSING NUBIA: THE POLITICS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRACTICE IN NUBIA” in February. He is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Case University in New York.
Samantha Seyler (ANTH) defended her dissertation “Monte Para Trabajar: Histories of land and Labor in Central Quintana Roo” in July.
Kasey Diserens Morgan (ANTH) is currently an Adjunct Lecturer in Anthropology in the Department of Cultural, Environmental and Global Studies at Salve Regina University as well as in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Delaware. She defended her dissertation “Resisting Heritage Facadism: Politics of Patrimony and Community-centered Approaches to Heritage Preservation in Tihosuco, Mexico” in July.
John Sigmier (AAMW) accepted a position as a postdoctural fellow in the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto. He defended his dissertation “Architectural Knowledge Transmission in the Theater Buildings of the Roman Northwest” in April.
Justin Reamer (ANTH) defended “The Farmers in the Del: Maize and Minsi-Lenape Foodways in the Minisink NHLM (2000 BCE–CE 1675)” in December. He graduated and taught last year at Bryn Mawr College, and is now a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Bowdoin College.
Senior Fellow Ralph Rosen, Vartan Gregorian Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Classical Studies, retires. Ralph served on the Kolb Foundation board as Vice President from 2012–2022.
Welcome and congratulations to Arielle Hardy (AAMW), Cianna Jackson (CLST), and Moriah McKenna (ANTH), newly elected Kolb Junior Fellows in 2024!
The Kolb Society awarded its first fellowship in 1981. Since that date numerous graduate students from across the University have been inducted into the society as Junior Fellows based on academic excellence and participation in fields of study related to the Penn Museum. Junior Fellows have been drawn from the graduate groups and departments of Ancient History, Anthropology, Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, Art History, Classical Studies, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Professors from those departments are elected as Kolb Senior Fellows, guiding the work of Junior Fellows of the Society.
Currently there are ten Senior Fellows representing Anthropology, Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, Art History, Classical Studies, and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. The Director of the Penn Museum serves as the President of the Society. As each Junior Fellow graduates, they become a lifelong Fellow of the Kolb Society as they move on in their career. Since 1981 the Kolb Society has graduated nearly 100 Fellows, who have followed up their graduate work with academic careers, fieldwork, and research reflecting the interests of the Kolb Society.
The Society itself is unique—the only academic society supporting graduate work. In this way, the Kolb Society has formed strong bonds among its Junior and Senior Fellows based at Penn, and its graduated and far-flung Fellows. From the hub of the Penn Museum, the Kolb Society and its fellows have spread throughout the world to academic institutions and excavations furthering the pursuit of archaeology.
Code of Conduct
The Kolb Society adheres to the Code of Conduct of the University of Pennsylvania and requires all Kolb fellows to do the same or risk dismissal from the Kolb Society.