You can check out each presenter’s abstract by visiting the Abstracts page.
Olivia Kirk
Olivia Kirk began her academic journey at the University of Birmingham in 2016 and graduated in 2019 with a First-Class degree in Ancient History. She decided to continue her studies at Birmingham and completed a Master’s degree in Antiquity: Classics and Ancient History, achieving a Distinction. She is currently pursuing my PhD at the University of Birmingham.
Claire Johnston-Martin
Claire Johnson-Martin is a PhD student at University of Wales Trinity St. David (UWTSD). She is currently researching the impact of the non-serious videogames, Assassin’s Creed Origins & Odyssey, on recruitment into post-16 classical and digital heritage education, with a focus on the accuracy of the games and whether they can be used as learning experiences. Prior to this she graduated from Swansea University with a BA(hons) Egyptology & Ancient History and MA(hons) Ancient Egyptian Material Culture. For the last decade she has been teaching A level Ancient History & Classical Civilisation, where she has frequent lively and in depth discussions about the aforementioned videogames!
Elizabeth Owen
Elizabeth Owen recently completed an MA degree in ‘Archaeology and Heritage of Egypt and the Near East’ at University College London. She did her BA degree in ‘Ancient History’ at the University of Birmingham where she first became interested in Egyptology. While undertaking her MA degree, Elizabeth started volunteering at Discover Bucks Museum where she became familiar with their Egyptian collection. Her presentation is an outcome of a personal research project initiated by this voluntary work.
Klaudia Kornas
Klaudia Kornas is a MA student at the Faculty of Archaeology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, specializing in Oriental and Classical Archaeology. She is currently working on her master’s thesis. In addition, she volunteers at the National Museum in Poznań, where she has the opportunity to work with objects from Egyptian art collection.
Reuben Hutchinson-Wong
Reuben Hutchinson-Wong a second-year postgraduate researcher at the University of Birmingham. Before joining the University, he completed his master’s at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research predominantly focusses on practices of continued use of tombs as sites of burial during the late Old through Middle Kingdoms.
Elizabeth Leaning
Elizabeth Leaning is a PhD Candidate at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland . She is an Egyptologist and archaeoastronomer, and her PhD investigates the presence of an astronomical corpus in Old Kingdom Egypt. She works in the interdisciplinary field of archaeoastronomy to examine how ancient Egyptians understood the night sky, and in her research engages with broader discussions about how academics can navigate pseudoscience, scientific elitism, and the difficulties in communicating indigenous knowledge within Western scientific frameworks. Her research interests also include reception studies and ancient Egyptian scientific practices as a whole.
Emily Whitehead
Emily Whitehead is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Art History, Emory University, Atlanta and the 2024-2027 David E. Finley Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. She received her undergraduate and master’s 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.
Valentina Santini
Valentina Santini is currently pursuing her PhD in Egyptology at the University of Birmingham (UK), with a thesis focused on the analysis of New Kingdom bereavement scenes from a psychological and anthropological standpoint. She is an Egyptologist and responsible for communication at the centre for archaeological studies CAMNES, based in Florence (Italy). She is also involved in the Egypopcult Project, which aims to promote the study of the perception of ancient Egypt in contemporary cultures. She has participated in numerous international conferences, authored various scientific papers, and published books for a broad audience.
Stuart Silver
Stuart Silver has long been interested in Egyptology and Egyptian and Near East languages, and specialises in Saite and Achaemenid Egypt. He has a Dip.HE with Distinction in Egyptology from the University of Glasgow, with his extended essay on the Egyptian rebellions during the first Persian Satrapy. He is currently doing an Ancient Cultures MSc (Part-Time) at the University of Glasgow. His dissertation will be concerning the spread of Amun across the Mediterranean after the Achaemenid invasion.
Emma Stone
Emma Stone is a PhD student at the University of Glasgow working to unravel the research (or lack thereof) surrounding ancient Egyptian amber from various New Kingdom burials. She is particularly interested in long-distance Bronze Age trade circulating throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. She holds an MSc qualification in Ancient Cultures (University of Glasgow), and a BA in Medieval Studies (University of Ottawa).
Posters (in process of being added)