Ioannis Mylonopoulos

Professor Mylonopoulos was educated at the University of Athens and the Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg (Ph.D. summa cum laude 2001). Before coming to Columbia in 2008, Mylonopoulos was Research Associate at the University of Heidelberg (2001-03), Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna (2003-06), Junior Professor at the University of Erfurt (2006-08).

In 2007/08, Mylonopoulos was a Fellow of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies. In 2011/12, he was a member at the School of Historical Studies of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. In the spring of 2015, he was visiting professor at at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and the first Columbia professor to teach Art Humanities in Paris.

Mylonopoulos has received fellowships and grants from the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, the German Archaeological Society, the Ernst-Kirsten Society, the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation, the Gerda-Henkel Foundation, and the German Research Council.

In 2011, he was awarded Columbia’s Faculty Mentorship Award and in 2014, the Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award (Lenfest).

Mylonopoulos’s book, Πελοπόννησος οἰκητήριον Ποσειδῶνος. Heiligtümer und Kulte des Poseidon auf der Peloponnes, Kernos supplement 13, Liége 2003, which won the Margarete Häcker Award for the best dissertation in Classical Studies in German language in 2002, examines the archaeology and architectural development of sacred sites on the Peloponnese dedicated to Poseidon. In 2017, he co-curated the exhibition “A world of emotions” at the Onassis Cultural Center NY, which later travelled to Greece and was presented at the Acropolis Museum, Athens. The exhibition was voted the best 2017 exhibition worldwide and was recognized with the Youniversal Award by Global Fine Art Awards.

Between September 2016 and June 2021, Mylonopoulos was the Director of the Program in Hellenic Studies at the Department of Classics.

Since 2014, Mylonopoulos directs Columbia University’s first excavation in Greece, at the sanctuary of Poseidon in ancient Onchestos, a sacred site mentioned already in the Iliad.

Since July 2024, Mylonopoulos is the Jonathan Sobel and Marcia Dunn Program Chair for Art Humanities.