You can check out each presenter’s abstract by visiting the Abstracts page.
Sebastián Francisco Maydana
Sebastián holds a BA in History and an MA in History and Archaeology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina). He is currently a PhD student at the University of Liverpool, thanks to an ACCE+ Doctoral Grant. His research focuses on the early history of Egyptian art, specifically Predynastic rock art. In addition to this, he is a published author of children’s literature and is in the process of preparing a monograph on the history of Egyptology in Argentina. Sebastián carried out fieldwork in Wadi Abu Subeira (Aswan, Egypt) and is currently a member of the Swedish Expedition to Gebel el-Silsila, in southern Egypt.
Jake Colloff
Jake Colloff is a PhD Candidate in Egyptology at Harvard University, where he is currently writing his thesis titled “Subversion, Contradiction and Paradoxes in Middle Kingdom Egyptian Literature”. Jake received his BA in Ancient History and Philosophy from the University of Auckland and his MA in Egyptology from Leiden University. Jake’s primary fields of interest are literature, Egyptian thought/philosophy, understanding emic views of Egyptian culture, applied theory, art history, and equity critiques of the discipline.
Trent Hugler
Trent Hugler is a DPhil student in Egyptology at Hertford College and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. Under the supervision of Professor Elizabeth Frood, his doctoral research comprises an historical-epigraphic reevaluation of the damnatio memoriae of Hatshepsut across her various monuments. He is active in the field, a member of both the Centré Franco-Égyptien d’Étude des Temples de Karnak (CFEETK) working in central Karnak temple, and the Gebel el-Silsila Project. His presentation today is derived in part from his latest field season at Karnak in January 2026.
Michael Moore
Michael received his PhD in Near Eastern Languages & Cultures from UCLA, specializing in Egyptology and ancient Near Eastern studies, and currently teaches ancient history at Brevard College. His research centers on identity, power, and agency in the royal courts of Ramesside Egypt and the Hittite empire.
Emily Whitehead
Emily is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Art History, Emory University, Atlanta, the 2024-2027 David E. Finley Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and a Visiting Postgraduate Researcher at the University of Birmingham. She received her undergraduate and masters degrees from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her PhD dissertation studies variation and innovation in coffins between the reigns of Senwosret I to Senwosret III (ca. 1961-1840 BCE) to foreground individual coffins and examine what they can tell us about the people who created and owned them.
Thaisy Nogueira Palmuti
Thaisy is a Master’s student in Archaeology at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, University of São Paulo (MAE-USP), supervised by Prof. Dr. Vagner Porto (USP) and Prof. Dr. Thais Rocha da Silva (UFMG). She holds a BA in History from the University of São Paulo, where she conducted undergraduate research in Egyptology focused on the Twenty-First Dynasty shabtis from MAE’s Egyptian collection. Her current research examines Brazilian private collections of Egyptian artifacts. She is a member of the Laboratory of Provincial Roman Archaeology (LARP).
Thomas Clarke; Elsbeth Geldhof; Giulia Moretti; Flavia Ravaioli; Helen Strudwick
With the exception of Elsbeth Geldhof, the authors work at the Fitzwilliam Museum in a variety of roles (as Egyptologists, a conservator and a heritage scientist) and collaborate in improving the understanding of the museum’s Egyptian collection. Elsbeth Geldhof is an independent historic paint conservator, and researcher of longue durée painting techniques and pigment sources from the ancient world and beyond.
Deniz Meral Ardic
Deniz holds a Bachelor’s degree in Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin from 2017 to 2021. Their undergraduate thesis focused on the integration of intellectually disabled individuals into Japanese society, with particular attention to its legal and social challenges. Deniz continued their academic path with a Master’s degree in Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin beginning in 2021. As part of their studies, they completed an exchange year at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan (2023–2024), where they also finished the Japanese Language Program (JLP) with the support of a PROMOS scholarship. In addition to their core studies, they obtained interdisciplinary credits in Prehistoric Archaeology, Archaeo-Informatics, and Art History. They gained practical experience through internships at the Goethe-Institut in Tokyo, Japan, and at the Japanese-International School e.V. in Berlin, Germany. They also held working-student positions at the Helmholtz Gemeinschaft (2022–2023) and later at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (from 2026). Further professional experience includes serving as a pavilion guide for the German Pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan. They hold a Japanese language proficiency certificate at the N2 level (2021), demonstrating conversational to business-level fluency.
Gemma Blanch Soriano
Gemma Blanch Soriano studied Ancient Sciences at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, after which she decided to pursue a master’s programme in the Netherlands. She holds a master’s in Museums and Heritage from Leiden University, for which she researched the narratives and practices of ancient Egyptian collections hosted in Spanish institutions. She is currently pursuing her second master’s in Egyptology at Leiden University, focusing on 19th- and 20th-century reception studies of ancient Egypt in the Catalan and Dutch contexts. Her research interests include museums and collections, material culture, and Egyptomania.
Lawrence Webb
Lawrence is a PhD candidate at the University of Southampton. His PhD focusses on the various ways in which museums represent ancient Egypt, and how visitor interpretations may be impacted by these modes of representation. Recently, he has presented research on the display of contemporary art and modern Egyptian objects alongside those of ancient Egypt, as well as portrayals of ancient Egypt in weird fiction of the late 19th and early 20th century.