Lynne C. Lancaster

Lynne C. Lancaster served as Andrew W. Mellon Humanities Professor at the American Academy in Rome from 2018 to 2021. Previous to that, she is professor and chair of the Department of Classics and World Religions at Ohio University.

Lancaster received a BArch (magna cum laude) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, an MPhil in classical archaeology from Lincoln College at Oxford University, and a DPhil in classical archaeology from Wolfson College, also at Oxford. Known for her research and exploration of Roman architecture and technology, with a focus on concrete vaulted construction, she was the 2002 Phyllis W. G. Gordan Rome Prize Fellow in Classical Studies.

Lancaster is the author of Innovative Vaulting in the Architecture of the Roman Empire, 1st to 4th Centuries CE (2015), in which she used vaulted construction as a means of exploring issues of technology transfer and trade networks within the Empire. Her first publication, Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome: Innovations in Context (2005), which she completed during her Rome Prize Fellowship, was awarded the 2007 James R. Wiseman Book Award from the Archaeological Institute of America. In addition to her numerous international collaborations, Lancaster served as a member of the American Journal of Archaeology’s editorial board and on the Construction History Society’s Scientific Committee. She was chair of the Fellowships Committee of the Archaeological Institute of America, for which she also served as an Academic Trustee (2011–16).