Rebecca Benefiel
Assistant Professor of Classics
Washington and Lee
Rising Star Recipient
Rebecca Benefiel is an Assistant Professor of Classics at Washington and Lee University, where she has taught Latin Literature and Classical Archaeology since 2005. She received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, completed graduate studies at the Università di Roma, ‘La Sapienza’ (Rome, Italy), and was awarded her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She has excavated in Carthage, Tunisia and Pompeii, Italy, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome.
Dr. Benefiel’s research focuses on the social and cultural history of the Roman Empire. She has published on a range of subjects, from the Roman army to ancient ideas on female virtue. Her current projects focus on the thousands of wall-inscriptions from the city of Pompeii, and provide a view of ancient history from the ground up. She is responsible for publishing the ancient graffiti from archaeological projects in the eastern Mediterranean and Italy, and is the North American editor for a major international project to create an online database of ancient inscriptions (EAGLE, The Electronic Archive of Greek and Latin Epigraphy).
Dr. Benefiel has delivered more than 30 conference papers and invited talks to national and international audiences over the past six years. A Virginia native, she is also committed to supporting the strong tradition of classical learning in this state, offering lectures at schools and colleges across the Commonwealth, at Hampton Roads Latin Day, and at the Virginia Governor’s Latin Academy.
Her work has been featured in USA Today, Science News, and Smithsonian magazine; newspapers in Italy (Il Sole 24 Ore), Germany (Südwest Presse), and Spain (Diario de Navarra); and media outlets through Asia. She has been interviewed for two programs airing on the History Channel, and for “Virginia Insight” on National Public Radio. She has won fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, and the Archaeological Institute of America.
She is married to Lt. Commmander Andrew C. McCrone, a naval aviator currently serving a 12-month tour in Bahrain, and they are the proud parents of a daughter, Katherine Arianna.
"Until the age of 19, save for one family vacation, I had never been outside the United States. Six years later I had been to three continents, studied in five countries, and become proficient in three foreign languages. A semester abroad in Rome was where it all began, literally opening my eyes to the world."