CIG’s year-round staff in Athens include the Director, Assistant Director and Cultural Program Manager. They are assisted during the academic year (September to May) by a Fellow and Interns appointed annually, and by a summer Intern from May through July.
After completing his B.A. and M.A. in Classical archaeology at Université Laval (Quebec), Jacques Perreault undertook his doctoral studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He obtained his Ph.D. in archaeology in 1984 and that same year was admitted as the first Canadian member of the French School of Archaeology in Athens. In 1987 he was appointed Director of the Canadian Archaeological Institute in Athens. Returning to Quebec in 1992, he taught one year at Concordia University before being hired at the Université de Montréal in 1993 as Director of its Center for Classical Studies, a position he held until 2003. Since 2014 he has been Chair of the Université de Montréal’s History Department.
Jacques Perreault has taken part in several archaeological excavations in France, Tunisia, Syria and Greece. He is currently co-director of the Greek-Canadian Excavations at Ancient Argilos.
He has contributed to numerous publications. His main interests concern contacts between Greeks and non-Greeks, trade in the ancient Mediterranean, Greek colonization and urbanism, and various aspects of Greek productions, especially pottery. Jacques Perreault was appointed an honorary member of the Greek Archaeological Society in 1987 and named honorary citizen of the City of Amphipolis in 2010.
Jonathan Tomlinson received an honours degree in Chemistry (1988) and a PhD in archaeological science (1991), both from the University of Manchester. His research examines trade in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean through the provenancing of pottery by chemical analysis. Jonathan first came to Greece in 1990 as a student at the British School at Athens, and returned in 1991 to work on the publication of results from his thesis. Several international scholarships allowed him to continue and expand his research and to conduct fieldwork at Knossos, Palaikastro and Kato Phana. He has continued to live in Greece since then, and became CIG’s Assistant Director in 1999.
Zoe Delibasis completed a BA in Sociology and Social Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal. She moved to Greece in 1979, having been selected for the position of Immigration Officer at the Canadian Embassy in Athens. In 1994, Zoe was designated Political and Public Affairs Officer at the Canadian Embassy in Athens, also responsible for cultural and media relations, a position she held until her retirement from the Canadian Public Service in 2020.
Zoe’s professional experience includes the organization of cultural events in the performing, visual and literary arts as well as cinema, including Canadian participation at the Thessaloniki International and Documentary Film festivals, the Athens Festival and the Thessaloniki Book Fair. She has led media promotion campaigns of Canadian embassy events and initiatives, including the North America tour of the exhibit “The Greeks: From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great”. She developed the annual Canadian Artist’s Residency program at the Vorres Museum in Athens, Greece. She has initiated bilateral collaboration between Canadian and Greek academic institutions for the establishment of partnerships in research and education.
Zoe has attended conferences and workshops in Canada and Europe on media relations, as well as on arts management and promotion. She has participated in international cultural events, including the CINARS Biennale and Le Salon du livre in Montreal, as well as the International Film Festivals of Montreal and Toronto.
She speaks, English, French, Greek and Italian.
Justine Lefebvre is a PhD candidate in History at Université de Montréal, under the supervision of Prof. Jacques Perreault. Her research focuses on metal production in Northern Greece during the archaic and classical periods, through the study of the specific case of bronze production at Argilos during these periods.
Located a few kilometers west of the Strymon river in Northern Greece, Argilos is an ideal location for the development of its metal production: an abundance of surrounding metal resources, a prosperous economy, and good relations with the Thracian populations from whose metallurgical expertise it can benefit. In order to thoroughly study this metallurgical production, the thesis relies on a multidisciplinary approach, combining traditional archaeological methods and archaeometry. Indeed, a sampling of bronze artifacts from the vast inventory collected in Argilos since 1992 will be subjected to typological, metallographic, chemical, and isotopic analyses. The results obtained through these analyses will provide a detailed picture of metallurgical production in Northern Greece throughout the Archaic and Classical periods, by identifying the nature and quality of Argilos’ production, and by evaluating how it fits into its regional context, in terms of distribution of raw resources and finished products.
Thanks to the Neda and Franz Leipen Fellowship, Justine hopes to complete the writing of her thesis, to which her nine-month stay in Greece is instrumental. First, a presence in Athens will allow her to benefit from easy access to the valuable resources available in the libraries of the Canadian Institute and other foreign research institutes, as well as in the numerous archaeological museums. Moreover, a stay in Northern Greece will allow her to visit the archaeological museum of Amphipolis, with the aim of completing the study of archaeological material linked to Argilian metallurgical production, as well as to study that which is still in situ at Argilos.
Emma van Weesenbeek is a third-year undergraduate studying Classics at the University of Waterloo. When she graduates, Emma plans to complete postgraduate studies of the ancient world through museum studies and curating.
During her time at university, Emma has gained a greater understanding of ancient art and architecture and the intricacies of their creation, meaning, and importance in culture. While studying, she has also learned useful skills in research and communication that allow her to effectively connect audiences to her studies and explorations.
Thus, in spending time in Greece, Emma will be able to see how the culture from which her studies stem displays its own artifacts, and hopes she will be able to learn more about how ancient and modern Greek cultures intertwine and affect one another to further her studies and career goals.
