Dr. Julia D. Troche

Biography

Dr. Julia Troche is and Egyptologist and Associate Professor of History. In 2022 she was awarded her university's highest teaching award followed by the Missouri Governor's Award for Education Excellence. She is committed to advocating for students, early career scholars, and contingent faculty, and fostering inclusive spaces for learning about the ancient world. She was selected to be a Fellow of Program Development and Inclusive Excellence at Missouri State’s Office of Inclusive Engagement (2024-25) where she is program lead of the Conmigo Initiative. Julia is co-chair of the American Society of Overseas Research’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and chair of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE)’s Equity, Access, and Inclusion Taskforce She is dedicated to the university Public Affairs mission, evinced by her numerous Service-Learning courses, public lectures, and community engagements, such as co-curating with Bryan Brinkman and student input an exhibition of antiquities at the Springfield Art Museum (Ancient Artifacts Abroad, spring 2024).

Julia's areas of instruction and research include social history, religion, archaeology, digital humanities, and reception studies of antiquity. Julia received her PhD from Brown University's Department of in Egyptology & Assyriology in 2015, and her BA in History from UCLA in 2008. She serves as Committee Chair (2024-2027) for her field’s annual, international conference (the American Research Center in Egypt Annual Meeting) and as co-chair (2023-2026) for the Archaeology of Egypt sessions at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Overseas Research.

Julia is an active member of her field, sitting on numerous international, national, and regional Boards and committees. Since 2022, she is a membership-elected Governor on the American Research Center in Egypt’s Board of Governors (a 501c3 non-profit, cultural institution in Egypt; www.arce.org). She co-founded both the ARCE, Missouri Chapter (Past President and Vice President, current Director focusing on Finance) and the annual Missouri Egyptological Symposium. She attended the HERS Leadership Institute in 2024 for women leaders in higher education (hersnetwork.org). She has served her campus community since arriving here in 2017 as a Bear Bridge mentor (2023, Outstanding Bear Bridge Faculty Mentor award), Safe-Zone Faculty Advisor, Advisor for the Ancient Worlds Club, Co-Advisor for History Club, and supporting her department through extensive service, including—at various times—chairing Undergraduate Committee and Personnel Committee, sitting on about three-dozen MA committees, serving on five search committees (chairing two), and serving as a past Faculty Senate and College Council department representative.

Details

Education

• PhD, Egyptology & Assyriology, 2015, Brown University, RI
• BA, History, 2008, University of California - Los Angeles

Teaching

• Pre-modern World History (HST 103)
• Ancient Egyptian (HST 532/632) and/or Near Eastern History (HST 541/641)
• Archaeology & Ancient History (HST 569/669)
• Digital Humanities, Public History, and Information Literacy (HST 301)
• History Writing and Research core-classes (e.g. HST 210, HST 598)
• Graduate Courses in Ancient History (e.g. HST 710, 770)

Professional experience

Professional Appointments & Affiliations

• Associate Professor of (Ancient) History
• Ancient Worlds Certificate, Faculty
• History Club, Faculty Co-Advisor
• Ancient Worlds Club, Faculty Advisor
• Fellow, Office of Inclusive Engagement 2024-2025

• Governor, American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) Board
• Chair, ARCE Annual Meeting Committee
• Co-chair, American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR)

Selected Publications

Julia has nearly presented a combined 100 public-facing invited talks and academic refereed papers in addition to the following selection of recent, double-blind, peer-reviewed publications:

Books

• Under Contract: Julia Troche. The God Ptah in Ancient Egyptian Religion and Society. Bloomsbury Press. Bloomsbury Press.
• Under Contract: Bryan Brinkman and Julia Troche. Life in Antiquity (Textbook). Routledge
• Bryan Brinkman and Julia Troche (eds.). 2022. Beyond Egypt: Relations and Imaginations of the Ancient Past.
• Julia Troche. 2021. Death, Power and Apotheosis in Ancient Egypt: The Old and Middle Kingdoms. Cornell University Press.

Articles and Book Chapters

• Stacy Davidson, Emily Cole, Anne Austin, Jess Johnson, Clara McCafferrty-Wright, Sara Orel, Kathleen Sheppard, Jason Silvestri, Jen Thum, and Julia Troche. 2024. “Understanding Diversity in American Egyptology: Results of the 2021 Egyptology State of the Field Survey.” Interdisciplinary Egyptology 3. Open Access.
• Julia Troche. 2023. “Examining the Grooves at the Ptah Temple, Karnak in Light of Comparanda” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 59 no. 1: 207-218.
• Julia Troche and Eve Weston. 2023. “Virtual Reality Storytelling: Pedagogy and Applications.” In Ancient Egypt, New Technology: The Present and Future of Computer Visualization, Virtual Reality and Other Digital Humanities in Egyptology. Harvard Egyptological Series 17, edited by Rita Lucarelli, Joshua A. Roberson and Steve Vinson, 572-591. Boston: Brill.
• Julia Troche. 2022. “Some Aspects of the Non-Royal Afterlife in the Later Old Kingdom.” In the House of Heqanakht: Text and Context in Ancient Egypt. Studies in Honor of James P. Allen. Harvard Egyptological Series 16, edited by Victoria Almansa-Villatoro Silvia Štubnová Nigrelli, and Mark Lehner, 527-542. Boston: Brill.
• Julia Troche. 2022. “The Roman-Nubian Frontier during the reigns of Augustus and
• Amanirenas: Archaeological Evidence from Talmis, Qasr Ibrim, and Meroë.” In Beyond Egypt: Relations and Imaginations of the Ancient Past, edited by B. Brinkman and J. Troche, 3-18. Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 36. London: Egyptian Expedition.

Research and professional interests

• Social history, religion, archaeology, and language of ancient Egypt and ancient Mediterranean. (book contract: "The God Ptah in Ancient Egyptian Religion and Society" with Bloomsbury)
• Pedagogy & Teaching, especially ancient history (book contract, with B. Brinkman for a Routledge Textbook "Life in Antiquity")
• Reception of ancient Egypt (current project: "Imhotep: the Man, the Myth, the Monster").

Awards and honors

• Program Development and Inclusive Engagement Fellow. MSU, Office for Inclusive Engagement, 2024-2025.
• Outstanding Bear Bridge Faculty Mentor Award, Bear Bridge, 2023.
• Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education. Awarded by Missouri Gov. Parson and members of the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education, based on “effective teaching, effective advising, service to the university community, commitment to high standards of excellence and success in nurturing student achievement”, 2022.
• Missouri State University Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching (highest university teaching award). Presented by the Foundation, 2022.
• Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning (FCTL) Teaching Award for Excellence in Inclusive Teaching Practices. FCTL, 2021.
• FCTL Curriculum Innovation Grant ($3300) for “High Impact Teaching in Ancient History.” FCTL, 2021.
• Women of Distinction Award. Missouri State University, 2020.
• Outreach Grant (external award) for “Unwrapping Ancient Egypt: Missouri Egyptological Symposium & Educators’ Workshop,” Archaeological Institute of America, 2019.

Additional resources

• Academia
• Mind's Eye Research - Relating stories of the ancient world

Areas of Expertise

Media Appearances