Classical Civilization Majors
Aadesh Anchaliya
Aadesh Anchaliya was raised in Raleigh, North Carolina and attended Durham Academy not too far down the road from Duke. At Duke, he pursued a major in Classical Civilizations with a strong interest in the intersection of medicine, ethics, and the ancient world. His studies were shaped by experiences such as translating ancient medical texts, working in hospice care, and exploring narrative medicine through the lens of Roman literature as well as project with the Duke History of Medicine Collection. He has also been involved both Humanities and STEM research and served as a peer facilitator in Biochemistry. Aadesh hopes to combine his passion for the humanities and healthcare in a future career as a physician.
Check out his time in Chios, Greece learning Homeric Greek through the Duke Classics Department: https://classicalstudies.duke.edu/news/aadesh-anchaliya-homeric-greek-chios-greece
Isabella MaryAnn DiMeo
Isabella DiMeo is from New York and majored in both Classical Civilizations and Political Science with a Philosophy minor. Inspired by her father (a fellow Classics major), she intersected her interest in modern politics by focusing on ancient law and economics in her classical curriculum. Her undergraduate research focused on voting patterns in Hispanic/Latine Americans and housing policy, which will extend to her postgraduate work. Isabella hopes to attend law school and pursue a career in international law.
Abigail Jane Hartemink
Abigail Hartemink was born and raised in Durham, NC. During her time at Duke, she completed double majors in Classical Civilizations and Art History: Museum Theory and Practice. Her love for classics was greatly enriched by the semester she spent abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. She has been deeply involved at the Nasher Museum, and the exhibition that she curated this year, On the Same Wavelength: Art, Science, & Conservation, is currently on display. She hopes to continue to work with art post-grad in a gallery or museum setting.
Helena Elizabeth Kagan
Peter Lewis Lehrman
Benjamin Ming Peng
Benjamin Peng was born in San Diego and will be graduating with a dual bachelor's in Classical Civilizations and Computer Science. Throughout his time at Duke, he sought to explore both computing and the classics, joining the conversational Latin group led by Prof. Leo Trotz-Liboff, as well as working on research in computational biology with Prof. Fred Dietrich. After his graduation, Benjamin will be returning to California to work as a software engineer for Facebook. In his free time, he enjoys playing sports, fishing, reading literature, and learning languages.
Read Duke Trinity Communications' profile on Benjamin HERE.
Anna Elizabeth Port
Anna Port was born in Richmond, Virginia. She grew up digging in the dirt, so it's no surprise that she's becoming an archaeologist! At Duke, she majored in Classical Civilizations with minors in French Studies and Classical Archaeology. She researched at multiple archaeology labs, worked for two museums, and studied abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Her exhibit with Professor Maurizio Forte, "Rethinking Etruria," is on view at the Institute of the Study of the Ancient World Gallery in New York City until July 20th. She also worked for two summers as an archaeologist at Poggio Civitate, an Etruscan sanctuary site. She received two fellowships for her archaeological research. Her senior thesis, "The Contest of the Athletic Female Body in Antiquity" earned High Distinction. Anna shares the David Taggart Clark Prize with fellow graduate and thesis writer, Sidney Jordan. Next year, Anna is heading to Ithaca to get her master's degree in Archaeology and Material Studies at Cornell University. Send her warm thoughts!
Fore more information on "Rethinking Etruria": rethinkingetruria.com
Matthew Peter Song
Matthew Song was born in Busan, South Korea and raised in Monkton, Maryland. At Duke, Matthew double majored in Classical Civilizations and History with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. As co-President of the Visions of Freedom Living and Learning Community and inaugural Print Executive Editor of the Duke Undergraduate Law Review with a deep passion for politics, philosophy, and legal and social history, Matthew greatly enjoyed exploring Greek and Roman societies, including their laws, customs, and histories, and how they inform and differ from our current understandings. Outside class, Matthew served as a team captain, competing for Duke in the Collegiate Chess League and as an editor of Duke’s undergraduate history review, Historia Nova. After graduation, Matthew will be staying in Durham to pursue his J.D. at Duke!
Classical Languages Majors
Sidney Justine Jordan
Sidney was born in Chesapeake, VA and raised in Elizabeth City, NC, a rural town near the Outer Banks. She will be graduating with a major in Classical Languages and a minor in Chemistry. A lifelong soccer player, she was on the Duke Women's Club Soccer team for all four years and was elected as a captain for her junior year. Sidney is a member of Dr. Charlie Cox's Chemistry Education Research Group and also worked on a Bass Connections project that studied how people view and think about ancient ruins with Dr. Maurizio Forte and Dr. Leonard White. She is currently applying to medical school and will be working as a Medical Assistant at a family medicine clinic in Durham during her gap year.
Read Duke Trinity Communications' article on Sidney HERE.
Kavya Iyengar Menke
Perhaps fittingly for studying Classics, Kavya Menke was born and raised in Athens, GA. She is majoring in Classical Languages and Evolutionary Anthropology, and will graduate with distinction with a BS. This year, Kavya served as a captain of Duke's fencing team, competing in both the ACC and Regional championships and making the all-ACC academic team and ACC honor roll. Post-graduation, Kavya will pursue a PhD in biological anthropology at Stony Brook University. In her Classics classes, she has loved learning Greek, improving her Latin, and getting to meet and work with students who love ancient languages just as much as she does. Ite caeruli diaboli, UNC delenda est!
Alexander Julian Pieroni
Alexander Pieroni is from Dallas, TX, and will graduate from Duke University with a major in Classical Languages and an Interdisciplinary Major in Computer Science and Linguistics. At Duke, he led Etruscology research in the Dig@Lab, helping reconstruct ancient cities and interpret the Etruscan Vicchio Stele—work featured in an April 2025 exhibit at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. With support from Duke’s Classical Studies Research Travel Award, he also conducted fieldwork at Vulci 3000, applying digital archaeology methods like photogrammetry and drone imaging to study Roman-Etruscan urban infrastructure. He contributed to The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily image archive and created ChatMedea, a language model fine-tuned on Euripides’ Medea, bringing ancient tragedy into dialogue with machine learning. He served as a Trinity Ambassador for Classical Studies, Business Manager of the Pitchforks, President of Duke’s A Cappella Council, and as Vice President of DuArts. He received university funding to develop the curriculum and teach a full-stack development course for humanities students. After graduation, he will join Disney Streaming as a Product Manager in New York City. Outside work and school, he enjoys composing music, hosting dinner parties, and writing.
Personal Reflection, “Why I studied ancient languages”
Elijah James Williams
Audrey S. Wang
Born in Fullerton, California and raised in Chino, Audrey Wang is a senior majoring in Economics and Classical Languages with a minor in Mathematics. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of media, public law and linguistics, with a particular focus on how information environments shape public perception and policy outcomes. Her training in Classical Languages informed this work by developing her skills in close reading and syntactic and semantic analysis. A Woodman Scholar in the Department of Economics since her sophomore year, she completed a senior thesis on cable news and economic sentiment, accepted for High Distinction in Economics. She previously served as editor-in-chief of The Chronicle and interned at the Brookings Institution and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. After graduation, she will work as a research assistant at Princeton’s Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies before applying to graduate school.