The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image DatabaseOlga Grlic
Olga Grlic (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley), is Research Professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. Dr. Grlic brings to the Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database special expertise in medieval Norman architecture in Southern Italy and an extensive background in languages, including French, Latin, Italian and Croatian. Dr. Grlic received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, having already completed a M.A. in Comparative Literature there. Her undergraduate degrees were in French and Spanish from University of Zagreb, Croatia. From 2014 to 2016 she was Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has published on Dante and made numerous translations from French to English.
Joseph Williams
In addition to serving as the one of the Project Managers of the Kingdom of Sicily Image Database, Joseph Williams is an assistant professor of architectural history in the University of Maryland Architecture Program. Williams specializes in the architecture of medieval South Italy and the greater Mediterranean. His research concerns the economics of church building during the medieval trade boom, the pan-Mediterranean exchange of building techniques, and the role of construction process in medieval design. These themes are central to Williams's forthcoming book Architecture of Disjuncture: Mediterranean Trade and Cathedral Building in a New Diocese (11th-13th Centuries CE). This monograph on the "Duomo Vecchio" (old cathedral) of Molfetta offers a method for studying buildings that, by necessity, adopted hybrid and changing designs. Williams incorporates a variety of digital technologies into his research and teaching, such as digital photogrammetry, parametric 3-D modeling, and GIS mapping.
Williams holds a Ph.D. in Art, Art History & Visual Studies from Duke University and was awarded a Rome Prize in Medieval Studies from the American Academy in Rome (September 2016 - July 2018)