Ben Anderson is studying Byzantine literature at the Institut für Byzantinistik, Ludwig-Maximilians-
Universität, Munich. He reports that his Greek and German improve daily and that he has had the chance to travel quite a bit, mostly in south Germany, Austria, and North Italy. Benjamin holds a Graduate Study Scholarship from German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). When he returns to the U.S. in the fall of ’07 Ben will begin work on his dissertation on medieval star maps, in particular, depictions of the cosmos in the early medieval successor states. His dissertation is being directed by Prof. Dale Kinney.
Category Archives: Current Students
McPherson Award 2008
This year the Award goes to LISA MALLEN, a student in the program in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology.
Lisa Mallen was nominated by a number of her fellow students for her extraordinary service to her department, to the Graduate Group in Archaeology, Classics and History of Art, and to all students in the GSAS as co-convenor of the Graduate Student Association.
Lisa entered the graduate program in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology in 2002, earned her M.A. in 2004 with a thesis on “The Cremation Burials in Early Iron Age Greece: Advertising Death Insurance,” and is currently working on her dissertation on the use and conception of space in Homer’s epics with reference to archaeological evidence. She held a Fulbright Fellowship to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens in 2005-2006, and for 2008-2009 she has won a Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities, our most prestigious award in the humanities.
Most important for this award, Lisa is not only excellent academically but also very service-minded, “consistently … one of the first to volunteer,” as one of her colleagues observed. On the departmental level she has served on the C. Densmore Curtis lectureship committee and helped to run a graduate-undergraduate mentorship program.
For the Graduate Group she served twice on the organizing committee for the biennial Graduate Group Student Symposium, in 2007 as its chair. Even before her election as co-convenor of the GSA she was active on the executive committee, and recommenders praised her “devot[ion] to preparing graduate students for the ‘real world'” through such activities as the Professional Development series; her invigoration of the Dean’s Certificate in Pedagogy (she completed the Certificate herself last semester); and last but not least, her efforts to “improve graduate student social life through organization of events such as the Winter Formal and monthly happy hours.”
One of her recommenders wrote that Lisa’s “willingness to volunteer and her belief that being an active member of your community is a key element in the success of an academic environment have been inspirational. [Lisa] makes it a point to pass these values on to the new students each year and to stress to them the importance of participation and service.”
The Mary Patterson McPherson Awards were established in honor of Bryn Mawr’s sixth president, who retired in 1997 and is currently the executive officer of the American Philosophical Society. McPherson Awards honor faculty, students and staff for excellence in their respective domains and exceptional service to the community. Thius is a substantial award worth $5,000. Winners are selected on the basis of nominations made by all segments of the Bryn Mawr population.