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Special Tours
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Egyptology Graduate Students
Back to Special Tours Information--> Rachel Aronin is a Ph.D. candidate in Egyptology who received her B.A. in Classics from Harvard University and is currently working on her dissertation in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. She has given lectures at the annual meetings of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) on Cleopatra the Great and on New Kingdom funerary writings, and has excavated at the important temple site of Abydos in Egypt. Her dissertation examines the representation and nomenclature of deities in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Kevin M. Cahail is a second year graduate student in Egyptology at Penn, pursuing his Ph.D. specializing in Egyptian Language. Holding a B.A in Classics with emphases in Archaeology and Ancient Language, his undergraduate thesis explicated the socio-religious context of ibis mummification during the Late Period and Graeco-Roman era. His recent research has been focused on solar theology of the New Kingdom, its connection with kingship, and the contextualization of the Amarna Period into the 18th Dynasty’s religious framework.
Elizabeth Pluta is a current Ph.D. student in the Department of Near
Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of
Pennsylvania, with a specialization in Egyptian Art &
Archaeology. She received her B.A. with honors in Ancient Greek and
Latin from Wellesley College, and has worked for both the Egyptian
and Classical Sections of the Department of Art of the Ancient World
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her research interests include
Egyptian ceramics, art and society in the Middle Kingdom, and the
Third Intermediate Period.
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Penn Egyptology Graduate students in the Near Eastern Language & Civilizations Department at the University of Pennsylvania will lead your group through Amarna: Ancient Egypt’s Place in the Sun and the Museum’s world-renowned 
Jane A. Hill is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania with a specialization in Egyptian Archaeology. With a B.A. in journalism from the University of Mississippi, Ms. Hill received an M.A. in Anthropology with a concentration in Archaeology from the University of Memphis in 1998 and an M.A. in Egyptology/Art History from the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the University of Memphis in 2001. Ms. Hill has worked on numerous archaeological projects in the American Southeast and in Egypt and has published on the late prehistory of ancient Egypt as well as edited books on the history of archaeology in the Southeast and on Maya archaeology. Her most recent work in Egypt includes projects undertaken by the Penn-Yale-IFA Expedition to Abydos and the Penn-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition to Saqqara. Her research interests focus on the formation of the Egyptian state in early 3rd millennium B.C.
Beth Ann Judas is a PhD candidate in the Art and Archaeology in the Mediterranean World Graduate Group at the University of Pennsylvania and she focuses on Middle and New Kingdom Egypt and the Bronze Age Aegean. She is writing her dissertation on the Late Bronze Age Aegean Ceramics in the Nile Valley: An Analysis of Idea and Practice in the Archaeological Record. She has excavated in both Egypt and Greece and has an insatiable curiosity about the interconnections between Egypt and Bronze Age Greece. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Classical Studies from Ripon College, Ripon, WI and her Masters of Arts in Classics from The Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL.
Kate Liszka is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, with a specialization in Egyptian Archaeology. She received her B.A. in Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and International Studies at The Pennsylvania State University in 2001. Miss Liszka has worked with several archaeological projects in Egypt and Tunisia. Her most recent work in Egypt includes projects undertaken by the Penn-Yale-IFA Expedition to Abydos. She has also worked closely with the Theban Mapping Project in Egypt. Her general research interests include 2nd and 3rd millennium economy, craftsmen, administration, daily life, urbanism, temples, and palaces. Specifically, Miss Liszka is interested in the beginning of the Amarna Period, including the social, religious, and historical changes of Tutankhamun’s grandfather, Amenhotep III; she also focuses the city of Amarna as a means of learning about Egyptian society, administration, and urbanism.
Dawn McCormack is a Ph.D. candidate in Egyptology at the University
of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation research concerns Dynasty XIII
kingship through an examination of the royal funerary monuments
including a tomb that she partially excavated at South Abydos in
2003. Dawn also directs the analysis of the Pharaonic and Late
Antique architecture and artifacts from the Abydos Survey for
Paleolithic Sites, a comprehensive examination of the upper desert in
this area. Material from this research has included Coptic Christian
hermitages, Roman encampments, and Pharaonic graffiti. Recently,
Dawn has acted as the surveyor for the White Monastery Project and
the Egyptian Delta Monastic Archaeology Project, the last of which
will evolve into a field school, in which she will be a part of a
team, teaching mapping and archaeological techniques. Dawn enjoys
sharing her experiences and passion for Egyptology with both children
and adults of all backgrounds though lectures and Museum tours.
Antonio J. Morales studied Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Seville, Spain. Later he studied Egyptology in England at the universities of London and Birmingham, starting his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002, under the direction of Prof. David P. Silverman. His areas of specialization are ancient Egyptian language, religion and history, with special focus on funerary and mortuary literature, beliefs on the Afterlife, mythology, temple rituals and liturgies, royal and private cult, magic, and kingship. He has participated in several excavations in Egypt (Thebes, Abydos, Saqqara) as archaeologist and epigrapher. His Ph.D. dissertation will discuss some interesting aspects of the textual mortuary tradition in the Old Kingdom and its transmission into the Middle Kingdom (Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts).
Tracy Musacchio is a Ph.D. candidate in ancient Egyptian language at the University of Pennsylvania. She has done field work at Abydos and Saqqara and she lived in Cairo for a year doing research in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Currently she is finishing her dissertation on provincial art of the First Intermediate Period while teaching a seminar on travel writing for the University of Pennsylvania. She has also held a fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and an internship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Melinda G. Nelson-Hurst is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, with a specialization in Egyptian Archaeology. She received her B.A. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and History from Brandeis University in 2001. Since her arrival at Penn, Ms. Nelson-Hurst has excavated at an elite Middle Kingdom house in South Abydos (Egypt) as part of the Penn-Yale-IFA Expedition to Abydos. Her areas of interest include Middle Kingdom society, family, titles, administration, and Middle Kingdom stelae from Abydos. Ms. Nelson-Hurst is currently working on her dissertation proposal.
Nick Picardo holds a B.A. in Anthropology/Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently an advanced Ph.D. candidate in the Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Department working on his dissertation in Egyptology. He has participated in excavations at Giza, Saqqara, and Abydos, and for his doctoral dissertation directed the excavation of an elite house in an ancient town at Abydos. He often spends time in Boston where he assists with work on the Museum of Fine Art's collection of Egyptian artifacts. His focal areas of study include topics relating to ancient Egyptian households & settlements, funerary religion, magic, and society.
Stephen R. Phillips, M.A., is the Research Assistant in the office of David P. Silverman, Ph.D., the Curator-in-Charge of the Egyptian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Stephen is a Ph.D. candidate in physical anthropology and archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also received his B.A. and M.A. degrees. Stephen has participated in a wide range of archaeological excavations over the past 15 years, including fieldwork in Jordan, France and seven field seasons in Egypt, most recently in January 2006-- Stephen is the Archaeological Site Supervisor for the ongoing Cairo University-Brown University Expedition in the Western Cemetery at Giza. Stephen specializes in the analysis of ancient Egyptian human skeletal remains, mummies and mummification techniques, as well as the Old Kingdom archaeology of the Giza plateau, an aspect of which he published recently.
Joshua Roberson is a current PhD candidate in Egyptian language at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his BA in Anthropology, with a minor in Philosophy of Religion, from the University of North Texas in 1998. He has worked in Egypt as an epigrapher with David Silverman at Saqqara (2001) and with Josef Wegner at Abydos (2004). He has published on Middle Kingdom magical artifacts and the early history of the Underworld Books of the New Kingdom, in addition to delivering a number of papers at conventions and invited symposia in the US and abroad. Joshua has taught a course on Egyptian religion of the New Kingdom at the University of Pennsylvania and is currently finishing work on his dissertation, entitled The Book of the Earth: A Study of Ancient Egyptian Symbol-Systems and the Evolution of New Kingdom Cosmographic Models. His research interests include Egyptian religious and funerary texts and representations from all periods, magical texts and artifacts, royal tombs of the New Kingdom, as well as cryptographic texts and parallel developments in the hieroglyphic script.
Vanessa Smith received her B.A. with honors in anthropology/ archaeology from the University of Chicago. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania studying Egyptology and writing her doctoral dissertation entitled "Modeling the Mechanics of Temple Production in the Middle Kingdom: An Archaeological and Textual Study of the Mortuary Temple of Senwosret III at Abydos." Her work includes the direction of an archaeological excavation of a temple bakery and brewery that made ritual offerings and wages for personnel for the Senwosret III temple at Abydos. Her research focuses on daily life (especially food preparation), administration of religious institutions, and the economy of ancient Egypt. 
Leslie Warden is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, with a specialization in Egyptian Archaeology. She received her B.A. in Anthropology, with a concentration in Archaeology from the University of California, Davis. Before returning to graduate school, she worked as archaeological coordinator for the Egyptian Antiquities Information System (EAIS) in Cairo. Ms. Warden has been involved in a number of field projects in Egypt, most recently in Abydos (the Penn-Yale-IFA Expedition) and the Kharga Oasis (the North Kharga Oasis Survey). She was also a member of the Egyptian Mummy Project, based in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Her research interests focus on third millennium settlement sites and provincial administration.