Dr Dorothy Thompson

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. 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). She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1996. Most of Thompson's teaching career has been in Cambridge (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 (1982/3), Fellow of the National Humanities Center, North Carolina (1993/4), 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.