Abbreviated CV
Education
PhD in Classics, King’s College London (2020).
MA Classics, Merit, King’s College London (2012).
BA Classical Civilisation, First Class Honours, Swansea University (2010).
Academic Appointments
Assistant Professor in Classics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2024–).
Robert Oden Postdoctoral Fellow in Innovation in the Humanities (Classics), Carleton College (2022-2024).
Lecturer in Classics, University of Winnipeg (2019-2022).
Publications
Gardner, C. A. M., & Austen, V. (2025). Wiki Education, the Ancient Mediterranean Classroom, and the Production of Global Knowledge. In C. A. M. Gardner, & S. C. Higgins (Eds.), Ancient Pasts for Modern Audiences: Public Scholarship and the Mediterranean World (pp. 231-250). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032647944-16
Johnston, C. L., Higgins, S. C., Daniels, M., & Austen, V. (2025). The Peopling the Past Project: Multivocality and Multimodality in Ancient Mediterranean Studies Teaching. In C. A. M. Gardner, & S. C. Higgins (Eds.), Ancient Pasts for Modern Audiences: Public Scholarship and the Mediterranean World (pp. 109-128). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032647944-9\
Austen, V. (2023). Analysing the Boundaries of the Ancient Roman Garden: (Re)Framing the Hortus. (Ancient Environments). Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350265219
Austen, V. (2020). Columella’s Prose Preface: A Paratextual Reading of De Re Rustica Book 10. Syllecta Classica, 31(1), 95-122. https://doi.org/10.1353/syl.2020.0008
Selected Awards and Honours
2026: Archaeological Institute of America Silver Public Engagement Award (awarded to Peopling the Past team).
2023: Society for Classical Studies Outreach Prize (awarded to Peopling the Past team.)
2022: Classical Association of Canada Elaine Fantham Award for Public Engagement (awarded to Peopling the Past team).
Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, UK.
Shortlisted (x2) for Best Graduate Student Paper, Classical Association of Canada Annual Conference.
Recent Conference Presentations and Invited Talks
‘Re-Casting the Gregory Collection: The Role of Plaster Cast “Antiquities” in the Formation of Taste at the University of Illinois’, CAMWS Conference (202
‘Gardens of Commemoration: From Rome to America – The Wilhelmina and Stanley Jashemski Annual Lecture’, AIA Iowa InvitedSpeaker (2024)
‘A Garden of (Re)Commemoration in the Mausoleum of Augustus’, AIA Niagara Peninsula Chapter Invited Speaker (2024).
‘Wiki-Education and the Classics Classroom’, New Directions in Classics seminar series, University of Winnipeg (2023).
‘Seneca’s Thyestes and the Anti-Garden within the House of Atreus’,Classical Association of Canada Conference (2022).
‘Distinguit et Miscet: Framing Garden Spaces in Elite Roman Villa Gardens’, Dalhousie University Classics Seminar series (2021)
‘#WCCWiki – Using Wikipedia for Public Engagement and Mobilising Change’, New Directions in Classics seminar series, University of Winnipeg (2020)
‘Columella’s Prose Preface: A Paratextual Reading of De Re Rustica Book 10’, Society for Classical Studies Annual Conference, January (2019)
‘Who has the time? Cultivating the garden space in Virgil, Georgics 4.116-148’, Classical Association of Canada Conference, May (2017).
Service to the Profession
Public Engagement Co-Ordinator, Peopling the Past (2022-)
Communications Officer, Women’s Network of Classical Association of Canada (2019-2022).