Ph.D - Art History
University of Texas at Austin, - 2001
Professional Preparation
M.A. - Art history
SMU - 1994
SMU - 1994
B.A. - Art History
Duke University - 1989
Duke University - 1989
Research Areas
Research and Teaching
Roman and Etruscan Art, Archaeology, and Architecture, Roman Villas, Ancient Pompeii and the Bay of Naples, Topography of Ancient Rome, the Ancient City, Digital Heritage, Production and Trade of Wine in the Roman World, and Roman Numismatics.Projects
Additional Information
Bio
Michael L. Thomas is an Associate Provost, Director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, and a Professor of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at UT Dallas. He holds the Richard R. Brettell Distinguished University Chair. He is the Managing Curator of the partnership between the Dallas Museum of Art and the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum. Thomas received his Ph.D. from University of Texas at Austin, where he served as the Director of the Center for the Study of Ancient Italy from 2011 to 2019. He also has taught at SMU, the University of Michigan, and Tufts University.Thomas is an art historian, archaeologist, and curator whose research focuses heavily on digital heritage. He has excavated in Italy for over 30 years where he co-directs multiple projects: the ongoing Oplontis Project in Torre Annunziata and the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project which is now in publications phase. A collaborative and interdisciplinary project between UT Dallas and UT Austin, the Oplontis Project is a leader in the implementation and utilization of Digital Humanities. He also co-directs the Villa od Cicero Project at Pompeii. . A collaboration between UTD, the University of Texas at Austin, Southern Methodist University, and the University of New Hampshire, this important project will re-excavate the remains of this villa and attempt to digitally reunite the many painting fragments (some of which were included in the Legacy of Vesuvius exhibition in 2024) cut out by Bourbon excavators to their original contexts in the villa.
Thomas is also one of the directors of the Royal Power, Exoticism, and Technology: Porcelain Rooms from Naples to Madrid, a cultural heritage project that brings together art historians and experts in digital technologies at the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History (University of Texas at Dallas) and the Custard Institute for Spanish Art and Culture (Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University) to create digital models of two of eighteenth-century Europe’s great artistic and technological achievements: the porcelain rooms that the Bourbon King Charles of Naples (later King Charles III of Spain) commissioned from his court workshop for the royal palaces at Portici (10 km southeast of Naples) and Aranjuez (50 km south of Madrid). The Project was awarded the 2025 Decorative Arts Trust Prize for Excellence and Innovation, a $100,000 grant for continued research.
Thomas’ publications include articles in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, American Journal of Numismatics, Etruscan Studies, and The Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, among others. He co-edited Monumentality in Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture: Ideology and Innovation and he is co-editor and author of the forthcoming Volume III of the Oplontis Project’s publication on the architecture and excavation of Villa A.