Sarah Wilker

Bio

I received my PhD in Classics from Stanford University in 2023. My research investigated the role of social networks in stabilizing, disrupting, and driving economic behaviors within ancient and premodern economies. My dissertation research combined archaeological and computational analyses to explore the relationship between community social relationships, wine production and drinking practices, and market exchange in the ancient Mediterranean world. Working as a computational archaeologist, my current scholarship combines expertise in archaeology, history, network science, sociology, and computer science to develop new models of socioeconomic interaction, and uses the ancient Mediterranean world as an optimal small data laboratory in which to test these models in the face of data scarcity. My broader academic research interests include Classical and Mediterranean archaeology, ancient economic history, economic sociology, social network analysis, and the computational study of the human past. I have worked on maritime and terrestrial archaeological projects across Italy, Turkey, Greece, and the United States, focusing specifically on ceramic materials. I was previously the Thomas F. Cooper Post-Doctoral Fellow and a Visiting Assistant Professor in Classics at Oberlin College, where I taught courses on Greek and Roman history, language, and culture, as well as ancient Greek and Latin language. I am excited to be back at Stanford as an Instructor for Continuing Studies.

Academic Appointments

• Casual - Other Teaching Staff, Continuing Studies