Our long-established Visiting Professorship programme has brought to Australia each year a distinguished scholar of Hellenic studies to undertake a national lecture tour among our academic and public supporters.
Thanks to the generosity of Dr Janet Gale, we are delighted to extend our Visiting Professorship programme through 2027. Janet is a long-standing supporter of the AAIA who has championed our endeavours. We are exceptionally grateful for her continued promotion of Hellenic studies in Australia.
2025 Gale Visiting Professor
Professor Alexander Mazarakis Ainian
Alexander Mazarakis Ainian was born in Athens in 1959. He studied History of Art and Archaeology at the Free University of Brussels and completed his PhD at the University of London (UCL) with a scholarship from the “A. Onassis” Public Benefit Foundation. He initially worked as an archaeologist at the Greek Ministry of Culture. He taught for eight years at the Department of History of the Ionian University and since 1999 he has been Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Thessaly. He has also taught at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; National Technical University of Athens; Paris I/Panthéon-Sorbonne; Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris); UCL-Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium); and Paris IV-Sorbonne. His field projects include Skala Oropos and Vari in Attica, Kythnos in the Cyclades, Soros in Magnesia, and Kefala on Skiathos. He has published numerous books and studies on Early Iron Age architecture in Greece, Homeric questions, and the results of his excavations. He was awarded the prestigious Chaire Internationale de Recherche Blaise Pascal in 2012 by the French state. In 2016 he was elected Corresponding Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, and in 2024 he received an honorary doctorate from Paris 1/Panthéon-Sorbonne
A History of the Visiting Professorship
Established in 1987, the Visiting Professorship has been generously supported by a number of individuals. These include Mr Sidney Londish; Mr Peter Burrows; Professor John Chalmers; Mr Michael Diamond; Mr Timothy Harding; Mrs Pauline Harding; Dr Robert Harper; Dr Monica Jackson; and Professor J.A. Young†. The Visiting Professorship has also been supported the Thyne Reid Foundation. We thank our sponsors for their long-standing commitment and generosity.
Past Visiting Professors
2020s
2024
Professor Philipp Stockhammer, Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich & Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
2023
Professor Reinhard Senff, Emeritus Director of the German Archaeological of the Ancient Olympia Excavations
2010s
2019
Professor Clemente Marconi, James R. McCredie Professor in the History of Greek Art and Archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University
2018
Professor Antonas Kotsonas, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University (formerly based at the University of Cincinnati)
2017
Professor James C. Wright, American School of Classical Studies at Athens/Bryn Mawr College
2016
Professor Katja Sporn, German Archaeological Institute at Athens
2015
Professor John H. Oakley, The College of William and Mary, Virginia, USA
2014
Professor W. Jeffrey Tatum & Dr Diana Burton, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Professor Alastair Blanshard, University of Queensland
2013
Professor Angelos Chaniotis, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton
2012
Professor Catherine Morgan, Director of The British School at Athens
2011
Professor Jack Davis, Director of The American School of Classical Studies in Athens
2010
Professor Robert Laffineur, Department of Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Greece, The University of Liège
2000s
2009
Professor Nicholas Chr. Stampolidis, University of Crete, Director of the Museum of Cycladic Art
2008
Professor François Lissarrague, Director of the Louis Gernet Centre for the Comparative Study of Ancient Societies, Paris
2007
Professor Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier, Director of the German Archaeological Institute in Athens
2006
Professor Jacques Perreault, The University of Montreal, co-director of the Greek-Canadian Excavations at Argilos
2005
Professor Panagiota (Nota) Kourou, Professor of Early Iron Age Aegean Archaeology, The University of Athens
2004
Professor Marc Waelkens, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
2002
Assoc. Professor Barbara Burrell, University of Cincinnati and Proffessor Graeme Clarke, Australian National University
2001
Prof. Andrew Stewart, University of California, Berkeley
2000
Professor John McKesson Camp II, American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece
1990s
1999
Professor H. Alan Shapiro, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.
1998
Professor Sarah Morris University of California, Los Angeles USA and Dr J. K. Papadopoulos The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, USA
1997
Dr Hermann Kienast, German Archaeological Institute, Athens, Greece
1996
Professor Erika Simon Würzburg, Chair of Class Archaeology University of Würzburg, Germany
1995
Professor Spiros Iakovides, University of Athens, Greece
1994
Professor John Barron, Director of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London
1993
Professor Helmut Kyrieleis, Director German Archaeological Institute Athens
1992
Professor Brunilde Sismondo-Ridgway, Rhys Carpenter Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA
1990
Professor Christos Doumas, University of Athens, Greece
1980s
1989
Professor Nicolas Coldstream, Yates Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, University College London
1988
Professor Lilly Kahil, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
1987
Professor John Boardman, Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art, University of Oxford, England