Symposium 2025 - Speaker Biographies
We are proud to present our speakers for the SSEA's 50th Annual Symposium:
Massimiliano Nuzzolo is Associate Professor in Egyptology at the University of Turin, Italy, as well as Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission at the Sun Temple of Nyuserra at Abu Ghurab (“Sun Temples Project”). PhD in Egyptology in 2010 at L'Orientale University of Naples, Italy, Massimiliano was scientific member of IFAO (2015–16), Research Associate at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University, Prague (2016–19) and Assistant Professor of Egyptology at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (2020–23). He is the author of The Fifth Dynasty Sun Temples. Kingship, Architecture and Religion in Third Millennium BC Egypt, a 560-pages monograph published in 2019, which summarizes more than 10 years of research on the ‘sun temples matter.’
Eva Lange-Athinodorou studied Egyptology and Classical Archaeology at Berlin and Leipzig, PhD in Leipzig (2008) and Habilitation in Würzburg (2021). Since 2012, she has been Senior Lecturer (tenure) at the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Würzburg. Since 2008, she has been Director of the Tell Basta Project (German-Egyptian archaeological joint mission at Bubastis). She became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology in early 2025. She was Co-Founder and remains Co-Editor of the Delta Reports—Research in the cultural history of the Ancient Egyptian Nile Delta. She is also a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute Cairo.
Carla Mesa Guzzo recently received her PhD from the University of Toronto. Her thesis explored military pageantry in the Amarna and post-Amarna Periods, using an experiential approach and encompassing a wide array of festive events. She has engaged in epigraphic fieldwork at the Great Hypostyle Hall in Karnak and settlement archaeology at Kom Ombo. She has also had the opportunity to research and catalogue a variety of objects at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
Tara Prakash is an Associate Professor at the College of Charleston. She received her PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University with a specialty in the art and archaeology of ancient Egypt. Dr. Prakash has held postdoctoral fellowships at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Johns Hopkins University, and she previously was the W. Benson Harer Egyptology Scholar in Residence at California State University, San Bernardino. She is the author of numerous articles on different aspects of Egyptian material and visual culture, and her book, Ancient Egyptian Prisoner Statues: Fragments of the Late Old Kingdom (Lockwood Press, 2022), is the first comprehensive study on the prisoner statues, a unique series of Egyptian statues that depict kneeling bound foreigners. Her current book project uses late New Kingdom royal monumental inscriptions and imagery to investigate the emotions and feelings associated with ancient Egyptian kingship.
Suzanne Onstine is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Memphis. She received her B.A. in Anthropology at the University of Arizona and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She has done archaeology in Egypt for 30 years and currently directs the University of Memphis mission to Theban Tomb 16, the tomb of Panehsy in Dra abu el-Naga, Luxor. She has published many works on women and religion in addition to various aspects of work in TT16.
Lyn Green received her PhD from the University of Toronto. Currently she is a Research Associate of the Royal Ontario Museum. Her published articles and public and scholarly lectures cover many varied aspects of ancient Egyptian culture, including food, feasting, dance, music and art in a wide variety of publications and venues.
Betsy Bryan is an historian and art historian of ancient Egypt and is a specialist in the New Kingdom (ca. 1600–1100 BCE). She is Professor Emerita of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the Johns Hopkins University and continues to teach part-time in the Near Eastern Studies Department. Her research interests include the organization and production of art and its social and cultural meanings. Likewise Egyptian ritual, particularly its performance and material expressions, are an important area of research and relate directly to art in cultural context. Bryan’s studies on the cult of Mut-Sekhmet are particularly often cited. Her long-term field projects in the Temple of Mut in South Karnak (2001–2025) and in the Theban Tomb #92 of the Royal Butler Suemniut (1993–2001) on the West Bank of Luxor derived from her specific interests, but as all field projects do, have extended her research, for example, into the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1700–1550 BCE). Bryan has also curated art exhibitions for the Cleveland Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art and has been Curator or Director of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum throughout her career at JHU.
