Research/Areas of Interest
Environmental history of antiquity; Roman history and archaeology, especially the Eastern Mediterranean; health and disease in antiquity; Roman economy; climate history; ancient urbanism
Education
- Doctor of Phil., Oxford University, GBR, 2021
- Master of Philosphy, Oxford University, GBR, 2017
- Bachelor of Arts, Columbia University, USA, 2015
Biography
Brandon is the Rumsey Family Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies with a secondary appointment in Environmental Studies. His research centers on human-environment interaction in the ancient Mediterranean region, with particular focus on the influence of climatic/environmental change and infectious disease on Graeco-Roman civilizations. Brandon co-directs a Late Antique excavation project in the Küçükçekmece Lagoon (Istanbul), and he has also conducted fieldwork in southwestern Turkey, Italy, Egypt, and Greenland, the latter as part of an ice core palaeoclimatology team. He has published his work in journals such as The Journal of Interdisciplinary History and The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology and is currently working on his first monograph titled Roman Ecology: The Interplay of An Empire, Its Natural Environment and Pathogens. Brandon came to Tufts from the University of Basel in Switzerland where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the Department of Ancient History.