BA Dartmouth College; PhD University of Pennsylvania

Dr. McFadden is a specialist in the art, architecture, and archaeology of the Greco-Roman and late antique Mediterranean, with a particular emphasis on the medium of wall painting. Prior to joining the faculty of Hong Kong University, she taught art and archaeology at Bryn Mawr College, Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. McFadden has authored several articles and book chapters on late Roman wall painting in Rome and Egypt and is the primary author and co-editor of the book, The Art of Empire: The Roman Frescoes and Imperial Cult Chamber in Luxor Temple, winner of the 2017 James R. Wiseman book award from the Archaeological Institute of America. Her current book project focuses on the visual culture of late Roman Egypt and explores the spatial, ritual and material dynamics of wall paintings in the ancient Mediterranean at large. Dr. McFadden has also been a fellow in residence at the American Academy in Rome (2009-2010) and the Getty Research Institute (2016), and since 2005 has been a member of the team excavating the late Roman site of Amheida in Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis, an archaeological project sponsored by New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

Selected Publications

McFadden, Susanna, and Michael Jones, eds. The Art of Empire: The Roman Frescos and Imperial Cult Chamber in Luxor Temple. New Haven: ARCE / Yale University Press, 2015.

McFadden, Susanna, and Sarah Lepinski, eds. Beyond Iconography: Materials, Methods and Meaning in Ancient Surface Decoration. Selected Papers in Ancient Art and Architecture. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America, 2015.

“Iconography and Style in the Late Roman Empire.” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Imagery and Iconography, eds. L. Cline and N. Elkins, 200-221. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.

“The Villa of Serenos and Wall Painting in the Western Oases,” in The Great Oasis of Egypt: Kharga and Dakhla Oases in Antiquity, eds. R. Bagnall and G. Tallet, 281-296. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

“Wall Painting in Egypt Outside of Alexandria: State of the Field,” in Antiqua 55, Pictores per provincias II – Status quaestionis. Actes du XIIIe Colloque de l’AIPMA – Université de Lausanne, 12-16 septembre 2016, ed. Y. Dubois and Ur Niffeler, 193-204. Basil: Archaéologie Suisse, 2018.

“A Constantinian Image Program in Rome Rediscovered: The Late Antique Megalographia from the So-Called Domus Faustae,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 58 (2013): 83-114.