Erica Kratz received her B.A. cum laude in History and Classics from Skidmore College in 2009 and is in the post-baccalaureate program to improve her Latin and Greek skills for graduate work. Her interests lie in archaeology, particularly in the study of cultural exchange as exhibited in the physical evidence. She has participated in three short archaeological projects, one of which was in Lazio, Italy excavating an Etruscan grave site. She has also participated in projects in Jordan and Australia. She wrote her undergraduate thesis on the lives of freedmen in the Italian peninsula during the first two centuries CE and how historians have examined this issue through both the written and physical evidence.