New professor of Provincial Roman Archaeology
Prof. Dr. Ana Zora Maspoli has been appointed the new professor of Provincial Roman Archaeology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. The Rectorate has named her the holder of the Vindonissa Professorship, significantly funded by the Canton of Aargau.
22 December 2025
Ana Zora Maspoli studied Classical Archaeology, Prehistory, and Historical Archaeology in Vienna. In 2019, she earned her doctorate with a thesis on excavations at and near the Roman fort of Ala Nova (Lower Austria). Since then, she has conducted research and taught as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Vindonissa Professorship in Basel. In 2022 and 2023, she was a visiting researcher at Leiden University (Netherlands). Her habilitation project focuses on the Roman necropolis at Brugg-Remigersteig (Vindonissa).
Her research emphasizes the social archaeology of the Roman provinces. Using interdisciplinary methods, she reconstructs ritual practices and social structures in necropolises. Maspoli and her team combine Classics, bio- and geoarchaeological approaches, and object-based, intersectional, and global theories to gain new insights into antiquity. Her goal is to create a nuanced picture of the past that reflects social diversity, global connectivity, and the complexity of ancient societies.
The Vindonissa Professorship, co-funded by the Canton of Aargau, is central to both the Canton of Aargau’s archaeology department and the University of Basel’s Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Sciences (IPAS). Its focus is on northwestern Switzerland, other parts of Switzerland, and the Upper Rhine region during the Roman period.
Senate awards Venia docendi
At the request of the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Senate has awarded to the following persons the degree of Dr. habil. and the Venia docendi. This authorizes the researchers to use the title of lecturer (Privatdozent) and the academic degree of Dr. habil.
Faculty of Medicine
- Dr. Cécile Monod for obstetrics and prenatal medicine
- Dr. Alexandra Puchwein-Schwepcke for pediatrics and adolescent medicine
- Dr. Romano Schneider for visceral surgery
- Dr. Beckey Trinh for endocrinology, diabetology, and metabolism
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
- Dr. Zeynep Köylü for English Linguistics and General Linguistics
- Prof. Dr. Matthias Leanza for Sociology
In addition, at the request of the Faculty of Science, the Senate awarded the degree of Dr. habil. to Dr. Nikolai Konstantin Leopold for mathematics.
