- Fellow type
- UK Emeritus Fellow
- Year elected
- 1996
- Sections
- Classical Antiquity
Dorothy J. Thompson, a Fellow of Girton College and Bye-Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, is an ancient historian with a particular interest in Hellenistic Egypt. In her research and writing she employs the evidence of papyri to look at social and economic questions; she is further concerned with relations between the different ethnic groups of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.
From 2001-2007 she served as President of the International Association of Papyrologists and remains an Honorary President. Other presidencies include the Cambridge Classical Association (1987-1990) and the Cambridge Philological Society (2002-2004). Her Memphis under the Ptolemies (Princeton 1988) received the James H. Breasted Prize from the American Historical Association (1989).
Most of Thompson's teaching career has been in Cambridge, including Isaac Newton Lectureship in the Faculty of Classics (1992-2005), with a visiting professorship at Princeton University (1996). She has been a Member of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton (1982-1983), Fellow of the National Humanities Center, North Carolina (1993-1994), held a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (2002-2004) and has lectured widely in the UK and the US. Her Honorary DLitt (Liverpool) dates from 2013.
