Anandh Owen Expand Anandh Owen is Chief Operating Officer of Delancey, a specialist real estate investment and advisory company. Prior to joining Delancey, Anandh spent nine years at Autodesk Inc, a NASDAQ-listed company, as European Director of Finance & Operations in both Media and Consumer software divisions and was involved in helping to manage revenue, operating margins and profitability on a quarterly basis with a view to achieving corporate targets. Since joining Delancey in September 2004, Anandh has conducted a full review of its operational capabilities and has embarked on a programme of improving the existing information technology infrastructure and aligning them to the needs to the business as a whole, thereby ensuring that Delancey operates more efficiently and effectively. He has also conducted a risk analysis review of the business and its allied finance and operating processes, with a view to developing a first class finance and business support regime, whereby finance materially improves its value to the business and provides a structured and streamlined process of providing accurate management and financial reporting. Anandh has also been responsible for defining a clear human resource strategy which allows Delancey to value, develop and optimise productivity through its employees. He has also been responsible for implementing all regulatory and compliance legislation for the past 10 years and manages assets approximating £4 billion. He has been passionate about the study of Egyptology for more than 15 years and has attended numerous courses over the years.
Dr Alexandra Villing Expand Dr Alexandra Villing is a curator at the British Museum’s Department of Ancient Greece and Rome, which she joined in 2001, after working in Germany and Greece. She is director of the Museum’s research project on Egyptian-Greek relations that focuses on the site of Naukratis in the Nile Delta, reassessing Flinders Petrie’s pioneering early work for the Egypt Exploration Fund as well as conducting new fieldwork at the site. Alexandra holds MPhil and DPhil degrees in Classical Archaeology from the University of Oxford, having begun her studies in Freiburg, Germany. She has long been involved in excavations in Turkey, at ancient Miletos and Knidos. Her research centres on interaction between Greece and neighbouring cultures and the roles played by material culture and religion in shaping identities, and she is particularly interested in collaborative approaches involving different disciplines, including sciences and history of research. For the British Museum she has curated an exhibition on ‘Fantastic Creatures’ in world cultures (shown in Korea and Hong Kong) and the Museum’s ‘Ancient Greece’ website. She has published widely on ancient Greek art and culture, including studies on pottery, religion, iconography, ancient Athens, relations between Greece, Persia, Anatolia and Egypt, as well as a children’s book on ancient Greece and four conference volumes, including one on Naukratis. For the Naukratis Project she currently co-ordinates a major online publication that combines over 17,000 objects in 60 museums worldwide with archival documents, many of which belong to the Society, and analytical studies, www.britishmuseum.org/naukratis.
Dr Katharina Zinn Expand Dr Katharina Zinn is Senior Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology and Heritage at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter Campus. Being at home at the School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, she is perfectly placed to teach and publish in her areas of interest (museums, heritage, material culture, identity, religion, Amarna, art, gender) using ancient Egypt as the civilisation which provides her case studies. She studied Egyptology (major), Communication- and Media-Sciences (minor), Economy (minor) at the University of Leipzig (Germany) where she also obtained her Dr.Phil. in Egyptology in 2008. Before moving to Wales and working both at Swansea University and UWTSD, Katharina was affiliated lecturer at the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. From her first steps in Egyptology onwards, she was involved in work in museums, be it as guide, research assistant or assistant curator. As part of the museum projects she has done a lot of outreach activities. Katharina joined the EES in 2007, but has not previously served as an EES Trustee.
Dr Linda Steynor Vice-Chair Expand Dr Linda Steynor studied English and Spanish at Bristol University; her subsequent career in education at local and national level included the inspection of English and Modern Foreign Languages, and the strategic leadership and governance of schools. She continues her involvement in education as Chair of Governors of a large Norfolk High School. In retirement Linda was able to pursue her lifelong interest in the language and literature of ancient cultures. Her major research interest is in the literary nature of Egyptian texts, and in August 2012 she gained her PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her thesis examines the functions of metaphor in the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant. She has been a guest lecturer at Birkbeck College, and has published and contributed to conferences and seminars. She is the English Editorial Assistant for Trabajos de Egiptología and has acted in that capacity for the Ministry of Antiquities Press, Cairo. Linda has been a member of the EES since 2002, during which times she has participated in its programme of activities and continues to enjoy the sense of an Egyptological community which the Society has created. She brings to the Society and its Board of Trustees a recent student perspective, a career-long understanding of organisational strategy, a high regard for the Society’s aims and a willingness to contribute to these to secure the Society’s future success.
Dr Luigi Prada Expand Dr Luigi Prada is Lady Wallis Budge Junior Research Fellow in Egyptology at University College, University of Oxford, and Theodor Heuss Research Fellow for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. During the academic year he conducts his research and teaches in Oxford, whilst he is in Heidelberg during the summer months. Luigi received a BA (Hons) in Classics and Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the University of Milan, where he also completed an MA (Distinction) in the same subjects, focusing on Greek Papyrology and Egyptology. He then moved to Oxford, where he received his MPhil (Distinction) in Egyptology and has recently completed his doctorate as a member of The Queen’s College. Luigi’s main interests lie in ancient Egyptian textual studies – with special focus on literary texts from the later phases of ancient Egypt’s history in hieratic and, chiefly, demotic – as well as the study of Graeco-Egyptian bilingualism and ancient translations, in connection with the development of Coptic. Currently, his main project is the study of ancient Egyptian divination practices, specifically dream interpretation; he is preparing a monograph that will include the first edition of a corpus of dream books in demotic. He is also a member of an international committee working on the edition of all manuscripts of the ‘Myth of the Sun’s Eye’, one of the most popular demotic literary texts, and of a research group preparing the publication of demotic literary papyri unearthed by the Franco-Italian excavations in the town of Tebtunis. He has lectured widely, including the teaching of intensive courses of hieratic and demotic at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Over the years, he has been a familiar guest at the EES, where he has recently taught two language classes, one on Middle Egyptian texts read in the original hieratic, and one on Late Egyptian.
Dr Margaret Maitland Expand Dr Margaret Maitland is Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean at National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh, where she curates the Ancient Mediterranean collections, including archaeology from ancient Egypt and Sudan, the Near East and Cyprus, and the classical civilisations of Greece and Rome, with an emphasis on managing the Ancient Egyptian collections. Margaret received a BA (Hons) in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the University of Toronto and an MPhil in Egyptology from the University of Oxford, where she completed her doctorate in 2016. She worked as a trainee Egyptology curator in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum as part of their ‘Future Curators’ programme, where she helped curate the UK touring exhibition ‘Pharaoh: King of Egypt’. She also worked with the Egyptian collection at the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and helped curate their exhibition ‘Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past’. Margaret has carried out fieldwork in the Middle Kingdom tomb-chapels of Middle Egypt, and participated in excavations at the Ramesside town and temple site of Kom Firin in Egypt with the British Museum, the Tell Madaba Archaeological Project in Jordan with the University of Toronto, and at Tell el-Masha’la, a late predynastic-early Dynastic settlement and cemetery in the Eastern Delta in Egypt. She has also led archaeological tours in Egypt and Sudan. Margaret writes an Egyptology blog, 'The Eloquent Peasant', and her blogging of the looting of antiquities that took place during the Egyptian Revolution was reported worldwide. Her main research interests include Middle Kingdom literature and art, particularly tomb-chapel decoration and tomb models, representations of social identity and hierarchy, and the early history of Egyptology.
Dr Margaret Mountford Chairman Expand Dr Margaret Mountford was elected to the Board in December 2010 and has served as Chair since October 2016. She practised as a solicitor in the City of London for 25 years, specialising in corporate finance and company law, then went back to university to complete a PhD in papyrology at UCL in 2012, working on papyri from Oxyrhynchus, which form part of the Society’s collections. Her roles in the education and charity sectors include being an honorary research fellow at UCL, Honorary Secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies and a governor of two Inner London schools. She has appeared in a number of television programmes including five series of The Apprentice and, more recently, presenting documentaries on Pompeii, Sappho, and the photography of Harry Burton during Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Dr Neal Spencer Expand Dr Neal Spencer is Keeper of the Department of Ancient Egypt & Sudan at the British Museum, responsible for the curation of the extensive collection of objects from Egypt and Sudan, while shaping and delivering exhibitions, research, publications and fieldwork related to the cultures of the Nile Valley. Neal developed the British Museum’s International Training Programme, which continues to host Egyptian and Sudanese curators and inspectors, currently directs the British Museum’s research project on the Egyptian town of Amara West in northern Sudan (www.britishmuseum.org/AmaraWest), and previously directed excavations at Kom Firin in the Nile Delta. Neal has also participated in EES excavations at Tell el-Amarna, Qasr Ibrim and Sais, was formerly a member of the Society’s Committee and member of the JEA editorial team (2003-2005). Neal was awarded a grant from the EES Centenary Fund in 1998 for his epigraphic work at Samanud, and holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, on Late Period temple building.
Dr Roberta Mazza Expand Dr Roberta Mazza is a papyrologist and ancient historian who obtained a PhD from the University of Bologna in 1997. After holding positions in Italy and the United States, Roberta has been a lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Manchester since September 2009. Her research and teaching largely focus on the Greek and Latin papyri and other Egyptian antiquities of the University’s collections. She has been a research fellow of the John Rylands Research Institute since its creation in 2013 and is also academic honorary curator of the Graeco-Roman Egypt antiquities of the Manchester Museum. Roberta strongly believes in the public role of academics, and for this reason often takes part in public events and gives talks on Graeco-Roman Egypt. In recent years she has also taken an active role in the debate surrounding the Egyptian antiquities market, organizing and participating in conferences on the topic and writing about it in her blog, Faces&Voices.
Dr Sami Sadek Expand Dr Sami Sadek. “Born in Cairo in 1951, I graduated from Medical School in Cairo with Honours in 1974. I came to Britain with my wife and family in 1980 to further my surgical training. I became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a PhD (University of Dundee) in 1982. My first consultant appointment was Senior Lecturer in the University of Leeds (1990) specialising in Liver and Kidney Transplantation as well as General Surgery. In 1995 I moved to Portsmouth as Head of Renal Transplant, and built up the living donor programme while supervising several MD theses produced by my research fellows. I continued with major cancer surgery, and developed a major interest in laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery, introducing new laparoscopic procedures to Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust. I retired in 2014, but still work as a part time consultant in General Surgery, which frees my time for my special interests. These include Egyptology, the care of my marine coral reef tank, listening to music (I am a hi-fi enthusiast), and my greenhouse.
Dr Val Billingham Expand Dr Val Billingham has a BA in Ancient History and Archaeology (1982) and a PhD in Egyptology (1987), both from the University of Birmingham. She has delivered several extramural courses on ancient Egypt for the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick and, more recently, has lectured on eastern Mediterranean voyages for Thomson cruises. Val entered the Department of Health fast stream as a civil servant in 1988 and spent twelve years there, working on a wide range of NHS and public health policies and strategies. She was awarded a Harkness Fellowship in 1995 and spent a year in the USA researching successful ageing, with a particular emphasis on maintaining autonomy, and its implications for UK policy. Val joined the British Heart Foundation in 2005 and is currently Head of User Involvement, responsible for supporting the patient and carer voice within BHF itself and in influencing the NHS and Local Authorities. Val took a career break between jobs in 2000 to write Egyptological fiction. Her first novel, Die Reise des Sonnengottes, about the harem conspiracy against Ramesses III, was published by Bastei Verlag in 2002. She continues to write, publish and self-publish Egyptological and other fiction in her spare time, under the pen name Susan Llewellyn. Val’s alter ego Susan is a keen experimenter with social networking who hosts a Wordpress blog about hieroglyphs, a Facebook page and a LinkedIn group, Ancient Egypt, and has over 700 followers on Twitter.
Jan Morton Expand Jan Morton is a chartered accountant, Finance Director and business partner who works in the Film and TV industry. After reading mathematics at King’s College, London, Jan qualified as an accountant in 1993. She then worked in the charitable, not-for-profit sector for a Housing Association before moving into the world of Entertainment. Since then Jan has worked for some of the most iconic companies in the world such as Paramount Pictures, NBC Universal and the BBC. As a business partner, Jan works with the CEO and key internal stakeholders to create budgets and business plans and provides commercial and financial advice to support business decisions. She has a proven track record in delivering results; leading cost reduction programmes and driving through operational changes to create efficiencies and improve profitability. Jan has improved financial reporting, processes and procedures in all her roles and has built first-class teams along the way. At Paramount Pictures, she was also responsible for HR, IT and Facilities departments as well as a subsidiary in Dublin. Jan brings a wealth of financial experience to the Board of Trustees, in particular: a good understanding of financial management and reporting, organisational development, strategic business planning and governance. Jan has been passionate about Egyptology since she was a child and has attended numerous courses over the years. More recently she studied for a Diploma in Egyptology, then a post-Diploma course on Deir el-Medina at Birkbeck College, University of London, graduating in 2010.