Alison Cooley

Alison Cooley is a Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick, Faculty of Arts. She holds leadership roles as Director of the Humanities Research Centre (2022–2025) and will serve as Director of the Institute for Advanced Study (2025–2028). She is also the Departmental Director of Impact and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

• BA, MA, DPhil – St John's College, Oxford
• Rome Award in Ancient Italian Studies – British School at Rome
• Junior Research Fellow – Corpus Christi College, Oxford
• Murray Fellow – History Faculty, Oxford

Her research focuses on Roman Italy and the early Principate, with a particular emphasis on Latin epigraphy and the use of inscriptions in transforming public space. She is deeply engaged in the archaeology of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and her work bridges social, cultural, political, and material dimensions of the Roman world.

Her recent publications include authoritative editions and commentaries on the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, the Senatorial Decree on Piso, and the Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy. She has also revised and expanded her widely used Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook. Her publications reflect a strong trend in epigraphic analysis, urban archaeology, and the cultural history of the Roman Empire, particularly in the Julio-Claudian period.

• Fellow, Higher Education Academy
• Butterworth Memorial Teaching Award (2004)
• IATL Pedagogic Intervention Grant (2013)
• IATL Academic Fellowship (2019)
• IAS Award for Public Engagement (2019)

She has supervised numerous PhD and MA students on topics ranging from imperial women to ritual law and epigraphic collections. She has served as Principal Investigator on AHRC-funded projects, including the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions Project, and is on the advisory board for the ERC-funded 'Crossreads' project. She is President of the British Epigraphy Society and co-editor of the Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents series. She is also a Faculty Member of the British School at Rome and part of an international team on Roman statutes led by Prof. Clifford Ando (Chicago).

She leads and contributes to major research teams and editorial boards, including the Journal of Roman Studies, Papers of the British School at Rome, and the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents (Oxford). Her collaborative work spans institutions in the UK, Europe, and the US, reflecting her central role in the international classical scholarship community.