Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship

The Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship supports all costs related to graduate student travel to Greece for research purposes, primarily during the summer. For information about this fellowship, contact hellenic@humnet.ucla.edu

Peter and Vivi Demopoulos were both born in Greece. They came via different routes to Los Angeles, where they eventually met in the late 1970s. Peter’s family roots in LA go back to 1905 when his paternal grandfather, Andreas, left Greece and arrived after a short stay in Ogden, Utah, where he had worked on the railroads with many others from his village. Planning to save money and then return to his family in Greece, Andreas had left behind his pregnant wife and his two-year son, Peter’s father. He liked Los Angeles, however, and convinced his three younger brothers to join him. He worked as an independent produce retailer and was successful enough to buy several acres of land near what is now Imperial and Vermont. Peter’s maternal grandfather returned to Greece to find a wife and possibly return to the United States. Unfortunately, the Balkan Wars and World War I spoiled these plans since traveling from Greece between 1912 and 1919 was impossible. Peter’s mother was born in Greece and was orphaned at a young age when her mother died in 1917 during the Great Flu epidemic. At the end of World War I, the army in Greece drafted Peter’s father. By the time he was released from service, the United States had passed a new immigration law barring practically all new immigrants. The only one from the family who successfully immigrated to the US was Andreas’ young daughter, Peter’s aunt, who had married an American sent to Greece by her father. During the Great Depression, Peter’s grandfather got a job at the LA Harbor shipyards. Unfortunately, he was badly injured in a job accident and died without ever seeing his wife and son again. Meanwhile, Peter’s father married in Greece and had four children. Peter was born when German and Italian forces invaded Greece in the summer of 1941, and his early memories are of the war. His mountainous birthplace in Greece, Kalavryta, was a hotbed of resistance and in December 1943 the Nazis committed one of the worst atrocities in Greece by indiscriminately killing all males over the age of 14 and destroying all the dwellings. Fortunately, Peter’s family survived by hiding in the nearby mountains. After the end of World War II, the Communists attempted to take over Greece and a civil war ensued that lasted five years. The United States helped defeat the Communists by supplying arms to Greece. During the civil war, Peter’s older brother and sister, in their mid-teens, were in danger of being drafted by Communist guerillas but were able to escape and come to the United States as “displaced persons” and live with their aunt. The family was reunited in 1956 when Peter, then 14, his younger brother, and his parents successfully joined their two older siblings. The family settled in Pasadena and Peter quickly learned English. He graduated from Pasadena High School, and then entered UCLA where he received a BS in Engineering in 1964, followed by an MS in Electrical Engineering from Caltech in 1965. After graduation, he joined Hughes Aircraft Company and worked on exciting aerospace programs. His first job was to participate in testing the communication system of the Surveyor Spacecraft, the first man-made object to land on the Moon. After his retirement, he consulted on advanced engineering projects and in parallel invested in real estate and the stock market. He says, “Aside from science classes, I enjoyed classes in Classics and History at UCLA, and a very useful Business Economics class at Caltech. The best time of my life was when I was at UCLA. At that time the UCLA Engineering Dean, Llewellyn Boelter, was very enlightened and required that students take 30% of their classes in the humanities. I believe this exposure to the humanities enriched the rest of my life.”

Vivi Demopoulos grew up in Athens and, after graduating from high school, worked for a short time before marrying her first husband, Aristides Alexopoulos, who was a student in Michigan. She joined him in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and they had one child, Yorgos. After her husband graduated, they moved to Southern California where Aristides found a job and Vivi worked at UCLA as a Grants Administrator. They liked Southern California because it reminded them of Greece. Unfortunately, her husband died of cancer a few years later. Peter and Vivi met in Westchester, where they both lived, and were married in 1980. They have five children, Maria, Nicholas, Katherine, Yorgos, and Stephen, and four grandchildren, Aris, the twins Penelope and Henry, and Aristides. Peter and Vivi love UCLA and wish the best for young students, especially those in the Humanities. They hope students will remember their time spent at UCLA as the best part of their lives.

2023-2024

As a Ph.D. student in the UCLA Interdepartmental Archaeology Graduate Program, Katrina Kuxhausen-Derose is pursuing a professorial career in classical archaeology focused on education, the reclamation of cultural heritage, and the preservation of material culture. This summer, she plans to explore ancient cultural heritage sites and participate in excavations at the Athenian Agora through the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA).

At the Athenian Agora excavations, Kuxhausen-Derose will receive training in advanced scientific techniques and a chance to improve her leadership skills. In the field lab, she will use paleoethnobotanical flotation and osteological analysis to ascertain human-environment interactions in the past (agriculture, nutrition, etc.). As a trench supervisor, she will be able to instruct students on proper excavation methods and guide them towards success.

Additionally, she will pursue her own research interests by traveling to cultural heritage sites, museums, and repositories. The heart of her inquiry lies in the reuse of architectural materials over time and space, as she believes reuse is one of the most important ways in which humans ground the past in our current reality. In preparation for her dissertation and her Graduate Research Mentorship project, she will familiarize herself with the extensive collections and resources available through the ASCSA. By travelling to ancient Greek UNESCO World Heritage sites with evidence of recycling and cross-cultural interaction, she hopes to learn about complicated cultural heritage research and site preservation.

2023-2024

Daisy Stock, a graduate student in the UCLA Department of Material Science and Engineering, investigates the historical use of marine resources in Minoan mud brick constructions on the island of Crete. By examining structures left at significant Minoan sites, she will evaluate how seagrass Posidonia oceanica (PO) fortified mud-brick formulations were used in construction. Her research focuses on the mechanical properties and environmental impact of these building materials. The support of the Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship takes her research out of the theoretical and into the field, where she will assess the uses of these native plants in situ. This research also extends into utilizing PO fibers in recreations and new formulations of mud brick to further characterize and understand techniques of the time. Through laboratory tests and fieldwork, Daisy aims to understand how ancient techniques were influenced by marine resources in an island community and how this knowledge was shared across the region. Additionally, her study will explore how these ancient construction practices can inform modern sustainable building methods, and explore uses in the restoration of historic structures in Greece. Daisy’s research seeks to bridge past wisdom with future aspirations, contributing to sustainable development through highlighting the innovative use of natural resources in local architecture.

2022-2023

Nicolyna Enriquez is a recipient of a Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship for 2022. Originally from Northern California, Nicolyna Enriquez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History. Her dissertation, “Surrounded by Sea, Rooted in Land: An Environmental History of Late Byzantine Art on Crete,” brings together visual imagery, architectural studies, archaeological research, and topographical analysis to explore how rural Cretan villagers in late Byzantium (13th-15th century) experienced and interacted with the maritime and terrestrial world around them. With the support of the Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship, Ms. Enriquez will conduct primary research for her dissertation, including the on-site analysis of Cretan churches. She will place these churches within the larger island landscape, investigating their proximity to the sea, rivers, settlements, heavily-forested regions, and mountain passes. She will also consider aspects of intervisibility between churches and their surrounding settlements. This information, in combination with the study of visual imagery, will allow her to explore the environmental concerns of rural villagers and examine how their relationship to the sea and land found expression on the walls of Late Byzantine village churches.

2022-2023

Christine Muron is a recipient of the 2023 Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship. Her project, Medieval Pottery Analysis Training and Research in Greece: Sparta, Corinth, and Athens, will investigate the production and distribution of Medieval pottery in Laconia, Greece, focusing on twelfth-century Sparta. The city’s strategic location within an agriculturally rich province allowed it to achieve close ties to Constantinople and other trading hubs and ports in the Mediterranean region, and the fine craftsmanship and quantity of wares recovered from the religious and secular remains suggest that it was a site of ceramic production. By comparing the decorations, fabrics, and techniques of Spartan wares with those unearthed at the meticulously excavated sites of Corinth and Athens (sites with concrete evidence of workshops and unfinished products), Muron’s research will trace regional tastes and preferences in Laconia to better understand what characterizes this pottery as “Spartan.” At the intersection of art historical and archaeological approaches, the Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship will foster laboratory and hands-on training at three sites with pottery collections kept in storage for long periods following excavation. The significance of glazed table wares among various architectural features suggests that domestic life was in constant dialogue with public monuments and spaces, simultaneously emphasizing the city as an essential node within a distribution network.

2022-2023

Leah Marangos is a recipient of the 2023 Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship. Her dissertation, Itinerant Images, and Inventive Encounters: Michael Damaskinos, Georgios Klontzas, and Art in the Eastern Mediterranean examines how mobility during the late sixteenth century impacted the works of two Cretan artists, Michael Damaskinos (1530/35-1592/93) and Georgios Klontzas (1535-1608). Her project assesses how these artists responded to diverse sources and demands of patrons as they and their objects traversed the early modern Mediterranean. The four chapters of her dissertation examine four fascinating and exemplary artworks that provoke investigation of their often unpredictable formats, compositions, iconographies, and pictorial vocabularies. She is approaching these objects as mixed places—as diverse formats (altarpieces, icons, manuscripts, and walls) for the encounter of materials, forms, idioms, ornamentation, and conventions that migrate. “Itinerant Images” investigates how experiences of the Mediterranean—observations and encounters with new materials and formats, as well as maritime environments—were incorporated into the works of Damaskinos and Klontzas. The objects serve as sites to explore themes of alterity, gender, identity, migration, and place. Her study of these artists, their journeys, and the diverse and fascinating artifacts they produced also yield insights into the evolving connections of Venice and its Greek colonies. It investigates the effects of colonialism and the fall of the Byzantine Empire on the Greek community throughout Venetian dominions and along the coast of the Italian Peninsula. She is exploring, then, through case studies, how the eastern Mediterranean is a conduit for artistic invention in the early modern period, revealing the persistence and creative legacy of Byzantium. The focus on Damaskinos and Klontzas allows a reassessment of categories such as periodization and national boundaries.

2021-2022

Camille Reiko Acosta is a recipient of a Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship for 2022. In order to shed light on the experiences of migrants in the Classical and early Hellenistic periods, Ms. Acosta’s project examines eight burials of individuals or families who were born elsewhere but died in Athens. By comparing the archaeological evidence from both Athens and the migrants’ homelands, her research questions the extent to which migrants retain their original burial practices or adopt new ones. These migrants came from various parts of Greece—including Chios, Lesbos, Samos, and Corcyra—which have their own funerary traditions. The Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship will provide the opportunity to study the archaeological material excavated from cemeteries in these locations, in order to make meaningful comparisons between the burial practices that these individuals left behind and the ones that they encountered in their new lives.

2020-2021

Sofia Pitouli (Ph.D. student, Art History) was awarded the 2021 Peter and Vivi Demopoulos Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship to support her research on the destroyed 13th-century monastery of Lykousada in Thessaly, built by Hypomone, the Vlach wife of the ruler of Thessaly who later became a nun. Pitouli’s research places the monastery within a network of interconnected villages, estates, and religious foundations in 13th- and 14th-century Thessaly. Analyzing material and textual sources related to the landholdings of the monastery, Pitouli investigates the landscape of the Thessalian plateau, maps the medieval roads that once connected the nun’s estates, charts the boundaries of Hypomone’s influence and power, and traces the movements of her powerful Vlach family.