Out with the Old, In with the New — A Farewell and a Welcome

As one fellowship year comes to a close, we bid a warm farewell to our 2025–2026 fellows and thank them for the energy, insight, and collegial spirit they brought to the Gennadius Library and the American School community. Their research, conversations, and presence helped make this year intellectually vibrant and deeply rewarding.

At the same time, we are delighted to welcome our new cohort of fellows for 2026–2027. Over the coming year, they will pursue projects spanning a wide range of subjects, periods, and disciplines, continuing the rich tradition of exchange of ideas and creative intellectual dialogue that defines the Gennadius Library.

Please join us in welcoming:

  • Zeynep Olgun, Ariane Condelis Fellow: “The Byzantine Ship: Seafaring, State, and Society”
  • Dimitrios Mitsopoulos, M. Allison Frantz Fellow: “The Empire of Smuggling: Illicit Mobility and the (Re-)Making of the Eastern Mediterranean, 1910s–1930s”
    Guoda Gediminskaite, Constantine and George Macricostas Fellow: “Creating a Christian Landscape: Church Networks and Christianization in Late Antique Macedonia”
  • Jake Haveles, Kathryn and Peter Yatrakis Fellow: “The Revolutionary Aegean: Law, Sovereignty, and Unfreedom between Empires, c. 1750-1850”
  • Thyra-Lilja Altunin, Schwarz Fellow for Research on Music: “A comparative contour-level analysis of the melodic patterns of Byzantine chant and ancient Greek music”
  • Alexander Lingas, Zoë Sarbanes Pappas Senior Fellow: “A New Historical Introduction to Byzantine Chant for Yale University Press”
  • Matteo Randazzo, Cotsen Traveling Fellow: “Exploring new directions in the study of the Islamic Emirate of Crete (820s—961): Archival Resources and Cultural Memory”

We look forward to the ideas, discoveries, and conversations this new year will bring.