Luke Madson joined the Classics Department in 2018 after receiving his B.A. in Classics and History from Knox College and his M.A. in Classics from Villanova University. He was a Regular Member (2021–2022) at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) as the recipient of the Thomas Day Seymour Fellowship and an Associate Member at the ASCSA (2022–2023) as recipient of the Eugene Vanderpool Advanced Fellowship.
Following this time in Athens, he was a doctoral researcher (2023–2024) at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, supported through a one-year doctoral grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). His time in Tübingen has resulted in a ‘cotutelle’ agreement for a joint doctoral degree between Rutgers and the University of Tübingen. In the fall of 2024, Luke will be the recipient of the Jacobi Stipendium (October–December) at the Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik (AEK) in Munich, a research center of Das Deutsche Archäologische Institut.
Luke has participated in the Gennadius Library Medieval Greek Summer Session at the ASCSA (2021), the Summer School at the American Academy in Rome (2019), and the ASCSA Summer Session (2016). He has participated in field survey in Lakonia with the Amykles Research Project (2024), field excavations at Corinth (2022 and 2023), and field survey with the Small Cycladic Island Project (2022 and 2023); he has also excavated at the Athenian Agora and with the Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project at ancient Eleon (2018). He is currently conducting ongoing site documentation at ancient Dekeleia (modern Tatoi).
Luke’s dissertation is titled: “Laconism in Classical Athens: A Cultural History.” It is a study of political subversion in Athens during the 5th and 4th century BCE. He has published or has forthcoming publications on Spartan kingship, Messenian identity and historiography, Classical and Hellenistic mortuary ritual in Messene and Sparta, the tombstone of Kritias and the Thirty at Athens, as well as the reception of Sparta in Augustan poetry.