Greg Woolf

Greg Woolf's work focuses on the archaeology and history of the Roman empire and the Mediterranean world more widely. He has published on literacy, on ancient knowledge cultures and libraries, on the Roman economy, on ancient religion, on the European Iron Age and on questions of resilience and environmental history. His latest book is The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History. He is currently working on mobility in the ancient world, and preparing two sets of lectures for publication.

Prior to coming to ISAW in 2025, Woolf held the Ronald J. Mellor Distinguished Professorship of Ancient History at UCLA with additional appointments in the Classics Department and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Prior to his time at UCLA, he was a professor of Classics and the director of the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London and was a visiting professor of Archaeology at University College, London. Earlier, he was a professor of Ancient History at the University of St. Andrews.

He has published six single-authored books, including Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge University Press), and 10 edited works. He is a fellow of the British Academy, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the Society of Antiquaries of London; and a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences. He held the Sather Professorship at the University of California, Berkeley in 2022, and he has held visiting positions in Campinas (Brazil), Erfurt (Germany), Madrid, Nijmegen (Netherlands), and Paris, among others. He is currently editor-in-chief of the Journal of Roman Archaeology.