Draft:Alessandro Sebastiani

Alessandro Sebastiani is Associate Professor of Roman Archaeology at the Department of Classics at State University of New York at Buffalo. He is an archaeologist interested in transitional periods such as the so-called Romanization, the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, Late Antiquity, and the perception and reception of classical architecture in modern Italy.

Education
Alessandro Sebastiani studied at the University of Siena, where he received his PhD in Archaeology in 2008. His dissertation focused on the urban changes in Tuscany between the 6th century AD and the 11th century AD. He studied medieval Archaeology with Riccardo Francovich until 2007. In 2008, he was hired as a Research Assistant at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia where he continued to serve as an Honorary Scholar until 2014. In 2012, Sebastiani was awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Intra-European Fellowship at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, where he remained until 2014. Sebastiani took part in several excavations in Tuscany and at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Butrint in Albania. In 2009, he started the Alberese Archaeological Project, which continued until 2016, the results of which were presented at prestigious institutions, such as the American Academy in Rome or at Brock University. After that, he directed the IMPERO (Interconnected Mobility of People and Economies along the River Ombrone) Project in south Tuscany, along the middle valley of the Ombrone River. The excavations are revealing the first late Etruscan and Republican vicus connected with a sanctuary in this part of Etruria, and its related Hellenistic necropolis.

Career
Sebastiani was hired as an Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo in 2017 and has served as Associate Professor since 2023. Before, he was a Visiting Professor of Classical Archaeology at Charles University in Prague. Since 2017, he has served as the University at Buffalo Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology (IEMA) board member. In 2014, he was awarded the prestigious Rakow Grant for Glass Research from the Corning Museum of Glass for the discovery and analysis of Roman glass workshops at the manufacturing district of Spolverino at Alberese. In 2019, he co-founded the MediTo Series, published by Brepols; the series investigates the archaeology of central Italy from prehistory to modern times. In 2023, his monograph ''Ancient Rome and the Modern Italian State. Ideological Placemaking, Archaeology, and Architecture 1870-1945'' was published by Cambridge University Press; here, Sebastiani details the intricate relationship between reception and ideological use of classical architecture of Rome during the formation of the Italian nation and the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. His work on identity and cultural heritage was also discussed in a specific panel at the first World Archaeology Summit in Al-Ula in 2023. Sebastiani has authored several papers and book chapters on classical and medieval archaeology of south Tuscany, and co-edited volumes on recent excavations.