Diane Archibald holds a Ph.D. in Architecture, and is a professor of architecture theory, history, and analysis. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections of architecture, urban planning, and cultural studies. Diane is a Visiting Scholar with the University of Rome, “La Sapienza,” and a Research Fellow at the British School at Rome. Diane was the Founding Curator of the international architectural collection of drawings, prints, and rare manuscripts for the Canadian Centre for Architecture. She was also an advisor to the Getty funded Architectural Drawings Advisory Committee (ADAG), at the Centre for the Advanced Studies of the Visual Arts, Washington, D.C.

After finishing his Ph.D. at Princeton University in the spring of 2007, Nick took on a new adventure: teaching the history of medieval art and architecture at LSU in Baton Rouge. After a life-time of being a student he finds it refreshing to be the teacher. Although his years as a Context docent in Rome definitely prepared him for the task of teaching, he can't say it's helped him with the humidity of the bayou... Oh to be spoiled again by the "ponentino" breezes of Rome. All in all, however, he finds comfort in knowing that he will be returning regularly to Rome during the summer months. If you're ever in the bayou give him a holler and you can share some good food!

Jessica Dello Russo is married to Stefano Salimbeni, a foreign correspondent for RAI International. They have a son, Ezio Nicola, 1. Jessica became a certified teacher in Massachusetts and teaches Latin, Italian, and Comparative Literature to middle and high school students in the Boston area, as well as English in her husband's hometown of Fabriano, Italy every summer. She helps keep Scala's legacy alive by serving as the U.S. Office Coordinator for the American Institute for Roman Culture, co-founded by Scala colleagues Tom Rankin and Darius Arya.

Hendrik is an historian and archaeologist with a primary interest in Western Europe, particularly the Italian peninsula, from approximately the third century AD through the ninth, the period spanning the end of the western Roman Empire and the birth of medieval Europe. He completed BA in Classics (Greek, Latin and archaeology) at Middlebury College and an MA in the same fields at Durham University. He obtained his Ph.D in Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Michigan, where he spent summers working in the field at various archaeological sites in Italy, Turkey and Israel, digging on land in Italy and underwater (shipwrecks and harbors) in Turkey and Israel. After four years in Rome and a year working with Context, Hendrik is spending the next year as a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Classical Archaeology at the University of Aarhus, participating in the program Art and Social Identities in Late Antiquity. He hopes to make frequent stops in Rome during the year in order to cheer on his soccer club (AS Roma) and lead the occasional walk for Context.

After living Rome and spending some time in NY, Aya moved back to Israel, where she started her studies for a Masters in Art History in the Tel Aviv University (obviously concentrating on the Baroque in Rome...). Meanwhile, she is teaching art (practical lessons) in high school "hayovel", Herzelia, and is continuing as an independent artist (painting and etching), and has just participated an art exhibition in Tel Aviv. She hopes to start giving lectures about the Jewish community in Rome through a company which she's in touch with, due to her walks with Context.

Back in his homeland of Australia, Duncan is currently living in Sydney. He is teaching casually at Macquarie University and working on his PhD on water infrastructure in ancient Campania. A holder of both an honours degree in Chemical Engineering and a Masters degree in Ancient History, Duncan has been awarded the Herculaenum Society Studenthship for 2008 (http://www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk/news.html) and so will be returning to Campania for up to two months in summer 2008..

A longtime Context docent, Carlos is now conducting post-doctoral research at the University of Heidelberg as a fellow of the Humboldt Foundation.

Jessica Maier, originally from Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a docent for Context Rome from 2005 to 2007. Her focus was Renaissance and Baroque Rome, primarily the Vatican, St. Peter's, and the Borghese Gallery. She first came to Rome in 2003 with a fellowship from the American Academy to research and write her dissertation on sixteenth-century maps of Rome, which she completed for Columbia University's Department of Art History and Archaeology in 2006. In Spring of 2007, along with giving walks, she taught a class on Renaissance and Baroque architecture in Rome for Dartmouth College's foreign study program. Jessica is now back in the United States, specifically New Orleans, where she is a visiting assistant professor of Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture at Tulane University. She has brought her Roman experiences back to the States with her and into the classroom, teaching a seminar on the Vatican and St. Peter's from Constantine to Bernini. It is her plan to resume giving walks for Context whenever her research brings her back to Rome (which, she hopes, will happen frequently…).

Australian native Flavia Marcello holds a Ph.D in architecture and teaches architectural history and sketching at Temple University in Rome. She wrote her PhD dissertation on Italian architecture of the Fascist period and the planned city EUR. As a scholar of Rome's most recent layer she has had to studied all those that came before so she is extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of Roman art history, its architecture and its urban development.

Caspar Pearson earned his Ph.d. in art history from the University of Essex and wrote his dissertation on the Renaissance architect Alberti's vision of the city. After many years in Rome, Caspar recently returned to the UK, where he will begin his tenure as a professor of art history at the University of Essex.

Vickie is currently an Italian Studies Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. She earned her B.A. in Art History from the Johns Hopkins University, with a focus on Renaissance Italian painting, sculpture, and architecture, and received my A.M. in Italian Language and Literature from Harvard in 2003. She has worked for several years as a docent for the cultural associations Scala Reale and Context Rome in Rome, Italy, and has studied abroad on fellowships at international universities, including the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. Vickie has presented her dissertation research at several American conferences throughout her doctoral career, and is currently completing her interdisciplinary thesis: “Demythifying” Rome: A Socio-Spatial Examination of the “Down and Out” in 1950s Italian Narrative and Film. Current projects include creating a study and work abroad program for Harvard undergraduate and graduate students in Rome, Italy; creating pedagogical materials using the multimedia resources of Italy’s television network the RAI; and contributing book reviews to Italica and The New York Times.