ROM appoints Kate Cooper as first Nick Mirkopoulos Associate Curator of Ancient Greece & Rome

TORONTO, December 1, 2025 – Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is pleased to announce the appointment of Classical archaeologist Dr. Kate Cooper as the Museum’s inaugural Nick Mirkopoulos Associate Curator of Ancient Greece & Rome. 

Cooper has worked with ROM since 2012 in various capacities, initially as the Rebanks Postdoctoral Fellow for Greece and Rome. In 2015, she acted as Assistant Curator for the exhibition Pompeii: In the Shadow of the Volcano and then as a Research Associate until her appointment as Associate Curator in January 2025.

Before joining ROM, Cooper held curatorial positions in the UK at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, where she reimagined the permanent Greece and Rome gallery, and in the Department of Greece and Rome at the British Museum.

“We are thrilled to appoint Kate to this vital and newly created role, bringing expertise and leadership to stewarding the Museum's Ancient Greek and Roman collections while providing strategy on provenance related to international loans and acquisitions,” says Dr. Chen Shen, Co-Chief Curator, Art and Culture. “Her transformative work with the Museum and other esteemed international institutions exemplifies ROM’s curatorial mission to present an even more engaging, cross-cultural, and transdisciplinary storytelling model.”

As the Museum’s first Nick Mirkopoulos Associate Curator of Ancient Greece & Rome, Cooper will be responsible for ROM’s extensive collections from the ancient Greek and Roman world, which encompass a large area of the ancient Mediterranean over more than four millennia – from the Bronze Age to the fall of the Byzantine empire. Overseeing the most comprehensive Greek and Roman collection in the country, she will play a vital role in deepening public engagement through enhanced research, programming, exhibitions, and learning initiatives.

“I look forward to showing visitors and academics the breadth of ROM’s fantastic collection while making connections between the people of the past and today,” Cooper says. “In this new role, I want to bring the ancient artifacts to life by revealing our links to the ancient Greeks and Romans as well as considering the differences and nuances of the ancient world.”

This newly established endowed curatorship was made possible by the generous support of the Mirkopoulos Family, with matching funds from the Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust.

“Our family is very proud to support ROM’s important work in stewarding remarkable objects from ancient Greece and Rome, and interpreting the stories they tell,” says D. Jim Mirkopoulos, a former Director of ROM’s Board of Governors. “The Museum has always represented an important part of our family’s cultural experience in Toronto, and we are delighted to pay homage to my late uncle and our extraordinary family patriarch, Nick Mirkopoulos, in this meaningful way.”

Cooper’s specialty is the Greek world and its archaeology, history, and society during the Early Iron Age, Archaic, and Classical periods. Her Ph.D. focused on the decorated pottery produced in archaic Corinth, and she is currently leading a research project on ROM’s large collection of ancient Greek coins, in collaboration with the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto. 

With a background in the history, literature, and physical remains of the Greek and Roman world, Cooper seeks to contextualize ancient art and archaeology by also considering the society in which it was made and used, while examining how this ancient material culture is still relevant today. Cooper’s work highlights modern misconceptions about the ancient Greeks and Romans and uncovers the hidden stories of ancient artifacts to reveal how they have shaped the perceptions about the Classical world. 

Prior to this appointment, Cooper has also taught ancient Mediterranean history, culture, and material culture at the University of Toronto, and has previously taught at Birkbeck College, London; the University of Cambridge; and at York University in Toronto. She is the editor of a key volume on Classical archaeology, New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture in the Greek & Roman World (Brill, 2021).

Cooper was appointed through an international search process led by Museum Search & Reference. 

Photo: Matthew Dochstader/Paradox Images.