Williamsport resident wins national award to study ancient graffiti

Hannah Maddy, daughter of David and Crystal Maddy of Williamsport, Pa., won a national field school award from the Classical Association of the Midwest and the South to support her summer research project studying ancient graffiti in Italy. 

The award will allow Maddy to participate in the Herculaneum Graffiti Project field school in Herculaneum, Italy in June 2016, and will allow her to travel to Pompeii, where she will examine some of the graffiti she studied as a student at the University of Richmond. This award is an honor that is granted annually to a single undergraduate student nationally.

Maddy, a classical civilization and Latin double major at UR, began her research on ancient Roman graffiti last summer with a Arts and Sciences Summer Research Fellowship under the supervision of Richmond professor Erika Zimmermann Damer. She spent the summer studying several thousand published graffiti from the towns buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and built a database of ancient poetic graffiti from the archaeological site of Roman Pompeii. 

The UR Summer Fellowship program, made possible by the Richmond Guarantee, awards students up to $4,000 to take on a challenging unpaid internship or conduct research with a faculty member. 

“This award is such a great opportunity for me as I’ll get to study firsthand the topic of my summer research and thesis project,” said Maddy. “The ability to complete a summer of funded research helped me attain this award, and I am incredibly appreciative of my professors and their constant support and encouragement. 

Maddy will graduate from the University of Richmond in May 2016. 

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