Gizelle joined the Classical Art and Archaeology track in 2026. Before entering the Yale Department of Classics, Gizelle received a B.A. in Classics from Columbia University as a John Jay Scholar and an M.A. in Classics from the University of Notre Dame. Her passion for the ancient Mediterranean first took hold on a high-school year abroad with an Italian family in Campania. She has excavated at sites in Greece and Italy, including Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli and the Villa Pausilypon in Naples, and worked as an Antiquities Consultant for the kids’ Greek mythology podcast “Live From Mount Olympus.”
Her primary interests lie in the art and archaeology of Magna Graecia, focusing on cultural interactions between colonial Greek and native Italic groups living in South Italy between the Archaic and Hellenistic periods. She is specifically curious about the roles and representation of women in mystic cults of Eros, Dionysus, and Demeter as expressed in South Italian red-figure and burial practices. Her M.A. thesis explored mirrors—both material and depicted in vase-painting—as potential markers of Etruscan influence among women in Classical Metapontion.