Taco Terpstra

Taco Terpstra is an Associate Professor of Classics at Northwestern University with a courtesy joint appointment in the History Department. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University (2011). His research focuses on the socioeconomic history of the Roman Empire, comparative history, and Roman archaeology and material culture. He has authored two major works: Trading Communities in the Roman World (2013) and Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean (2019). Terpstra co-edited Portrait of a Child (2019) from a Block Museum research-exhibition project.

His teaching includes courses on the Roman economy, archaeology of Pompeii, and classical reception studies. He has held prestigious fellowships, including the Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship (2016-17) and an Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship (2015-16). His interdisciplinary work bridges historical methodologies with archaeological evidence, emphasizing cross-cultural comparisons in economic systems.

Terpstra collaborates with Northwestern's Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities and contributes to digital humanities projects. His research trends highlight the interplay between private and public institutions in ancient trade, with recent focus on Mediterranean connectivity and material culture analysis.