Kathryn Louise Gleason :::
Kathryn Louise Gleason
Graduated in 1975
Inducted in 1994
A classical archaeologist specializing in landscape design and gardens in the ancient Roman
world, and the only woman directing an archaeological excavation in Israel, Kathryn Gleason is a
1975 graduate. She received a bachelor's degree from Cornell University with a specialization in
landscape architecture in 1979, a master's in landscape architecture with distinction from Harvard,
and a doctorate in classical archaeology from Oxford University in 1991. She is the winner of the
prestigious Rome Prize to the American Academy in Rome, Italy. Researching ancient Roman landscapes
her work has taken her to ancient villas, palaces, and cities in Jericho, Masada, Herodium, and
Caesarea, Israel; the Forum and Palatine Hill in Rome; Sardis, Turkey; Carthage, Tunisia; and Great
Bedwyn, England. Concerned about the future as well as the present of archaeological sites, she
consults on tourism and village modernization plans and methods of historic preservation. At
Caesarea, on the Israeli coast, her team unearthed new evidence showing ruins that once housed a
palace built by King Herod the Great. Gleason is an assistant professor in the Department of
Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. She is author of
The Archaeology of Garden and Field.