The constant research happening in UR’s labs and classrooms earns the respect of others, especially when those findings are the first-of-its-kind in a given field.

Erika Zimmermann Damer, a classical studies and women, gender, and sexuality studies professor, exemplifies this with her recent grant from the Institute for the International Education of Students. She’s heading to Rome next spring to conduct new research on women who appear in ancient graffiti.

“Scholars have called for a critical study to look at the women who appear in the graffiti of Pompeii and Herculaneum, but it has never been done,” Zimmermann Damer said. “By studying the women who appear in these records, this project offers a major critical intervention in the social history of Pompeii and will fill in the gaps left by previous studies of Pompeiian political careers and families.” 

She also involves undergrads with the Ancient Graffiti Project, a digital resource and search engine for locating and studying graffiti of the early Roman empire.

We are of so proud of our professors who are constantly working to expose Spiders to new research!