Paola CORO'

Paola Corò graduated in Classics with a dissertation in History of the Ancient Near East in 1997 at Ca' Foscari University Venice and earned a PhD in Semitic Linguistics in 2003 from the University of Florence. In 1998/1999 she was a research affiliate at the Dept. of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, UCL London.

In 2001 she was awarded by Ca' Foscari University Venice the Prize for Young Researcher and in the following years research fellowships at Ca' Foscari University Venice (2003-2005), at the School of Advanced Studies in Venice and Venice International University (2006-2007) and again at the Dept of the Humanities, Ca' Foscari University Venice in 2017-2018.

After working as adjunct professor at the University of Trieste (2002-2003 Assyriology for Beginners) and at Ca' Foscari University Venice (2003-2008 Sources for the study of the History of the ancient Near East; Assyriology 2009-2010), she was first appointed as fixed-term lecturer (RTD/a) in Assyriology (2012-2017) and then to a tenure track assistant professorship (RTD/b; 2019-2021) at Ca' Foscari University Venice, where she was promoted to Associate Professor of Assyriology in 2021.

Over the years, she taught a full range of courses, both at the BA and MA level, in Assyriology, Sumero-Akkadian Epigraphy, Semitic Philology, Literatures of the Ancient Near East. Part of these courses were also designed in blended format. She also taught courses focusing on Hellenistic Babylonia in Paris (Pantheon-Sorbonne: 2008), Vienna (Inst. für Orientalistik: 2015), Leiden (LIAS: 2019) for the TSM Erasmus+ Programme and for the  Harvard Summer School in Venice (2017).

In 2015, she designed the first-ever introductory course to Cuneiform writing in MOOC format (Cunei-Lab), which run on the Eduopen platform (www.eduopen.org) until 2018 and was published by Contact North Ontario in their  Pocket of Innovation Series as an example of best practice worldwide, and presented at the World Conference on e-learning in Toronto in 2018.

She organized numerous apprenticeships on the field for students, esp. focusing on how to read cuneiform tablets from the originals and on digital epigraphy, both at the British Museum (London), at the Civici Musei di Storia e Arte di Trieste and at Ca' Foscari.

She supervised and co-supervised numerous BA and MA thesis as well as PhD students in Assyriology and Ancient South Arabian Studies in Venice; she is also the co-supervisor (with C. Waerzeggers) of an international PhD students based in Leiden.

Her main research interests include the epigraphy, archives, culture, and socio-economic history of Hellenistic Babylonia; the diplomatics of cuneiform tablets (esp. the Library of Ashurbanipal and Hellenistic Babylonia); and digital epigraphy (esp. the application of ML and Deep learning to the study of the cuneiform tablets). On these topics she authored 2 monographs, 1 edited book, and numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Since 1998/1999 she worked as an epigrapher at different Museum and Institutions around the world: the Dept. of the Middle East, British Museum, London; the Iraq Museum (Baghdad); the Civici Musei di Storia ed Arte di Trieste; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Museu de Montserrat. In 2019 she was appointed as epigrapher of the Wasit Regional Project – survey (Iraq) of the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari (dir. by L. Milano).

She participated in various international projects run by the Universities of Berkeley (HBTIN – Hellenistic Babylonia: Texts, Iconography and Seals), by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas -Madrid.

Since 2020 she is the PI of the project Liber: The king’s librarians at work. Applying machine learning and computer vision to the study of scribal marks on cuneiform tablets (www.unive.it/liber), in partnership with the Library of Ashurbanipal Project (British Museum, London) and the CCHT (Venice). In the framework of Liber she has directed the research of 4 research fellows working under the umbrella of the project

Since 2009 she took part in numerous international workshops and conferences and/or was invited as lecturer among others at the University of California, Berkeley; Wien, Inst. für Orientalistik ; Leiden, LIAS; KU, Leuven; UA, Barcellona; VU, Amsterdam; University of Toronto, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (Canada); Paris I- Pantheon Sorbonne.

She organised international lectures series: “Between East and West: Babylonia and Beyond”, Dept. of Humanities, Ca’ Foscari Univ. Venice; the Neo-Babylonian Network annual workshop (2018) in Venice, Univ. Ca’ Foscari, Dept. of Humanities; and co-organised (with C. Waerzeggers, the Univ. of Leiden and K. Abraham, Univ. of Leuven) and hosted the Onomastics Training Week in Venice (2018).

Since 2020 she is part of the scientific board of the A-class journal KASKAL, for which from 2002 to 2019 she also served as the Scientific secretary. Since 2017 she is part of the scientific board of the SIe-L (Società Italiana per l’e-Learning) and until 2022 she was also part of the scientific board of the International Project Melammu.

She acted as expert peer-reviewer for journals and monograph series like Iraq, AsiAnA, Ricerche Ellenistiche, Near Eastern Archaeology, ECF -Studi Orientali; Melammu Workshop Monographs; RAI 67 Turin Proceeding, and is registered in REPRISE (the Register of Scientific Experts set up at the MUR) as an expert in the Fundamental Research section.

She is a member of the International Association for Assyriology (IAA), of the CUSTAA (Consulta degli Studi su Asia e Africa).

She served and still serves as a member of the counselling board for the MA in Antiquities and the Near East, of the BA in Humanities, of the BA in History. She is a memebr of the board of the Doctoral School in Humanities (Univ. of Venezia, Udine, Trieste). From 2014 to 2020 she was part of the University board for e-learning and appointed by the Rector to promote Ca’ Foscari’s participation in Eduopen. Since 2020 she is the Departmental delegate for e-learning.