Kate Cooper

Bio

B.A., Lit. Hum. (Classics), Oxford University, 1998
M.A., Classical History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 1999
Ph.D., Classical Archaeology, Kings College London, 2007

Dr Kate Cooper joined the ROM in May 2012 on a two-year Rebanks Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.  Her research, which builds on her Ph.D. work, focusses on the ancient uses and appreciation of figure-decorated archaic Corinthian pottery, which was the most widely transported of all the pottery produced in archaic Greece and is found all around the Mediterranean.  She is also working on particular aspects of the iconography of early Greek pottery, including the sphinx and the gorgon.  As well as pursuing her own research, Kate has day-to-day museum tasks, including working with Paul Denis in the Greek and Roman section on curatorial matters, and taking part in the running of ROM public events such as Ancient Rome and Greece Weekend (see this blog announcement) and National Archaeology Day at the ROM (see this blog announcement).

Before coming to the ROM, Kate was at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (UK), where she was part of the curatorial team responsible for the redisplay of the Greek and Roman gallery.  For some information on that gallery project see these pages of the Fitzwilliam Museum website.  She has also worked in the Greece and Rome department at The British Museum, London.  Her range of experience in different museums has stimulated her interest in how museums currently display Greek and Roman antiquity, and how such displays help shape the perceptions of the general public about this field of academic research.  These ideas have been the subject of several academic presentations, and the inspiration for teaching graduate seminars at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Classics and the University of Toronto, Classics Department.   

Other Links

ROM Blog: Meet Kate Cooper, Ancient Greece and Rome expert