Matthew P. Canepa is professor and Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Presidential Chair in Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran at the University of California, Irvine. An elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and former Guggenheim fellow, Canepa is the author of numerous publications including the award-winning books The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 BCE–642 CE (2018), winner of the James R. Wiseman Award from the Archaeological Institute of America in 2020, and The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (2009), recipient of the American Historical Association’s 2010 James Henry Breasted Award. His most recent volume is entitled Persian Cultures of Power and the Entanglement of the Afro-Eurasian World (2024). With support of a CAORC fellowship, at the American Academy he is researching the material entanglements between the Seleucid, Arsacid, and Roman empires and Central Asia, India, and the Mediterranean with a focus on the role of precious metal vessels and commensal politics.