Thomas A. Leibundgut

PhD Candidate – Ancient History
MA in History, 2016
BA in History, 2011
Dissertation Title
Working Women Walking. Labour Migration in the Roman Empire (27 CE – 235 CE)

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Thomas is a PhD student on the Ancient History track. His research focuses on the social and economic history of antiquity, with special emphasis on gender and migration. He is particularly interested in the interdependence of urban labour markets and gendered migration patterns, as well as demographic analyses and the study of minorities.

He currently works on his dissertation researching the migration of women in the Roman Empire: using a combination of epigraphical, textual, and bio-archaeological approaches, he interrogates the paradigm of the single adult male migrant. Leveraging the possibilities of computational data analysis, he examines women’s propensity to move within the provinces and across the whole empire as well as the importance of labour in women’s decisions to migrate.

Thomas graduated from the University of Bern (Switzerland) with a BA in History (2011) and received an MA in History (2016, with a specialisation in Ancient History and Minors in both Gender Studies and Philosophy) from the same institution. His Master's thesis focussed on the urban population of the city of Rome at the time of Augustus: combining demographic, economic, and migration-oriented approaches, he discussed both its size and composition.

In addition to his studies, Thomas was a student representative on the local, national, and international level, as well as a political secretary for Switzerland's largest peace organisation. Furthermore, he was a student assistant for Digital Humanities at the University of Bern, and assistant project manager of Switzerland's Youth Parliament.

Research Interest(s)
Research Subfields
Ancient Philosophy and Science
Ancient Roman Archaeology
Ancient Roman History
Digital Humanities
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