Greetings, Members of the Washington DC Society of the AIA!

 

It is time for the 2025 election of officers and members of the Board of Governors. Please be sure to cast your vote before the end of the day on May 12, 2025.

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In accordance with our Society's by-laws, all six officers serve annual terms (June-May) and so appear on this year’s ballot. Three of the nine positions on the Board of Governors, each with three-year terms, also expire this year.    

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Brief bios of all the candidates have been circulated by email and can be found below. For each position on the ballot, you may cast your vote for a named candidate, or you may select the "write-in" option and enter the name of a candidate of your own choosing.

 

At the bottom of each page is a forward arrow button that you must use to move through the ballot.  Once you advance past the last page of the ballot (which will be clearly marked as such), your ballot will be recorded.  

 

The ballots are anonymous, and we ask you to please vote only once.  Thank you!

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CANDIDATE BIOGRAPHIES

Office: President

Candidate: Joe Scholten (Incumbent)

Biography: Recently retired Associate Director of the Office of International Affairs at the University of Maryland, where he was also Affiliate Associate Professor of Classics.  He earned an AB in History and Classical Civilization at the University of Michigan, and MA and PhD in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of California Berkeley.  He is a former Regular Member at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, where he was a Fulbright Scholar, and was also a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Münster in Germany.  Prior to coming to UMD, he was on the History faculty at Portland State University, and Michigan State University.  At UMD, prior to moving into administration, he taught for the History and Classics departments, and the Honors College.  He also has led more than a dozen UMD study abroad courses to central Italy.  His research has focused on Aitolia in NW Greece, in particular its political and institutional history during the Hellenistic Era, whose results he has published in a monograph (The Politics of Plunder. Aitolians and their Koinon in the Early Hellenistic Era, 279-218 B.C. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000) and a series of articles. He is a past member of the Managing Committee of the American School, and has served as Treasurer of the DC AIA Society from 2018-2021.

 

Office: Vice President

Candidate: Alexis Catsambis (Incumbent)

Biography: Dr. Alexis Catsambis is a maritime archaeologist who heads the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C. Since 2008, he has provided for the stewardship, research, conservation, and curation of submerged U.S. Navy heritage sites.  He holds his graduate and doctoral degrees from the Nautical Archaeology Program of Texas A&M University and completed his undergraduate studies with the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity of the University of Birmingham, UK. He has also completed graduate certificate programs in Historic Preservation, Artifact Conservation, and Nonprofit Management at Texas A&M University and Georgetown University. His publications include serving as co-editor of the “Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology,” and co-author of the textbook “Our Blue Planet: An Introduction to Maritime and Underwater Archaeology,” while he has lectured at numerous academic institutions.

 

Office: Secretary

Candidate: N/A (pending)

Bio: N/A (pending)

 

Office: Assistant Secretary

Candidate: Lynn Sorbara

Biography: Former Program Director, National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (retired in 2024). Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY.  Past Professional Experience: Faculty, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, NY; Post-doctoral Fellow at the Rockefeller University, NY. Authored or co-authored over 50 publications in national and international medical journals. Past AIA service: AIA member, Washington DC Society Board of Governors and Hospitality Committee Chair, 2013-2015. Past board service: Former President of Catholic Alumni Club of Washington DC, and former Vice President of the Abruzzo and Molise Heritage Society.

 

Office: Treasurer

Candidate: Jorge J. Bravo III (Incumbent)

Biography: Assoc. Prof., Classics Dept., UMD College Park.  B.A. in Classics, Princeton; Ph.D. in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, UC Berkeley.  Excavated in Greece and Italy, former Co-Director of American Excavations and Kenchreai (Greece).  NEH Grant to study at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Sept. 2017- Jan. 2018. Research interests in Greek cult, ancient athletics, visual culture.   AIA Service:  member since 1991; Vice President, Minnesota Society, 2009-2010; Treasurer, Washington Society, 2013-2014; President, 2014-2019.

 

Office: National Liaison

Candidate: Elise Friedland (Incumbent)

Biography: Elise A. Friedland is Associate Professor of Classics and Art History and teaches Greek and Roman art and archaeology and Latin at The George Washington University. She earned her PhD in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan and her BA in Classics from Williams College. Prof. Friedland has published two co-edited volumes, The Sculptural Environment of the Roman Near

East: Reflections on Culture, Ideology, and Power (2008, Peeters Press) and The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture (2015, 2018: Paperback, Oxford University Press), as well as a monograph, The Roman Marble Sculptures from the Sanctuary of Pan at Caesarea Philippi/Panias (Israel) (2012, ASOR’s Archaeological Report Series). Her articles focus on the importation, display, and messages of marble sculpture in the Roman Near East, especially in Israel and Jordan. Prof. Friedland is currently engaged in two major projects: studying and publishing the corpus of Roman marble sculptures discovered at the site of Beth Shean/Scythopolis in Israel; and investigating the reception of Classical art in Washington, DC. In 2013, Prof. Friedland was awarded GW’s Bender Teaching Award, the Archaeological Institute of America’s national Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, and the ASOR Membership Service Award. She has received multiple fellowships, including awards from the U.S. Capitol Historical Society (2017), the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, Jerusalem (2019), and an NEH Public Scholar Fellowship (2020-21) to write Classical Washington: Greece & Rome in the Art and Architecture of DC. For the AIA, Professor Friedland has served as President of the Central Florida Society, and President, Co-Vice President, Board Member, and National Liaison of the Washington, DC Society. At the national level, she has served on multiple committees including the Lecture Program Committee, the Society Outreach Grant Subcommittee, the Selection Committee for the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, the Societies and Membership Committee.

 

Office: Board of Governors (Post 1)

Candidate: Faya Causey (Incumbent)

Biography: Faya Causey is a scholar, lecturer and educator whose interests range from the Paleolithic to the present. An active independent scholar, she recently retired as the head of academic programs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. During her tenure at the Gallery, she also served for two years as Associate Dean at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA). At the Gallery, she oversaw the museum’s internship and fellowship programs and its public programs by specialists—including lectures, conferences presented by guest artists, conservators, collectors, art historians and curators. While her field of specialization is ancient art, with a focus on Italian art and archaeology (with publications on Greek, Etruscan, Italian, and Roman art, and on amber generally), Causey has also lectured on and published on museums, Michelangelo, Paul Cézanne, Sigmar Polke, Wu Guangzhong and I.M. Pei. Her best-known publications are Amber and the Ancient World (2012) and the online scholarly catalogue, Ancient Carved Amber in the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2020 (first published 2012). Her most recent essay, on the amber Augustus in the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, recorded by Pausanias, is her contribution for the Festschrift for John Pollini (2025). After earning her B.A. at the University of California, Riverside and her M.A. and Ph.D. in art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Causey was an instructor of record at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and then associate professor at California State University, Long Beach. Causey has held research fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Clark Art Institute, the Getty Research Institute and the American Academy in Rome and was a Fulbright Lecturer. She is a member of the College Art Association, American Association of Museums, Renaissance Society of America and the American Institute of Archaeology. She is currently a board member of the Washington D.C. Society of the American Institute of Archaeology.

 

Office: Board of Governors (Post 2)

Candidate: Alex Nagel (Incumbent)

Biography: Alex Nagel (PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2010) is a Research Associate with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. He has excavated and participated in archaeological projects in Germany, Greece, and Iran.  In Washington, D.C., Dr. Nagel curated several exhibitions and research projects, focusing on the cultures and the modern legacies of the ancient Mediterranean, Arabia, the Middle East, and Central Asia. A recipient of international awards, grants, and fellowships, he writes about and teaches about the reception of ancient cultures in the New World to students in D.C. and NYC. Recent publications include a book, “Color and Meaning in the Art of Achaemenid Persia” (Winner of the World Book Award, Iran, 2025), and the co-edited volume “Cave and Worship in Ancient Greece: New Approaches to Landscape and Ritual” (2021, with Stella Katsarou). He has been with the AIA D.C. Society since 2010.

 

Office: Board of Governors (Post 3)

Candidate: Barbara Porter

Biography: Independent scholar living in Washington D.C. She resided in Jordan from 2006 to 2020 when she was the Director of the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR, now called the American Center of Research). In this position, she was integrally involved with the heritage of Jordan and particularly Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabataeans. Barbara’s interest in the archaeology of the Middle East started when she lived in Lebanon with her family from 1965 to 1970. She received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and her graduate degrees (M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.) from Columbia University. From 1978 to 1983, she was on the curatorial staff of the Egyptian Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and from 1983 to 1986 she was an assistant curator in Ancient Near Eastern art there. In the ten years before she moved to Jordan, Barbara led tours from Algeria to Iran for a number of organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian. In her years as ACOR Director, she was involved in films on Petra and responsible for the publication of several major monographs on the site. Since leaving Jordan in 2020, she has led several tours to Saudi Arabia and many of her photos are included in this brochure.

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