Dr. Michael Thomas
- Director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History
- Professor of Arts and Humanities
- Richard R. Brettell Distinguished University Chair
The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History was established by a gift of $17 million from Edith O’Donnell in 2014. This gift was supplemented with $10 million from the Texas Research Incentive Program, yielding aggregate endowments of $27 million with which the institute can support faculty and student research and collaborations with institutions in the region and around the world in the promotion of art historical scholarship. The institute is housed in the Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building on the UT Dallas campus and also maintains facilities in the Dallas Museum of Art.
“It is an honor to hold this chair that was created by Edith O’Donnell and that honors Rick Brettell. I look forward to honoring their legacies by making art more relevant and available to the UT Dallas community and to the citizens of North Texas.”
As an expert on the art and archaeology of the Etruscans and Romans, Dr. Michael Thomas focuses on interdisciplinary research and collaboration. In his role as director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, he builds innovative partnerships that drive important research and support education and student learning.
For more than 25 years, he has excavated in Italy, where he co-directs two projects: the ongoing Oplontis Project in Torre Annunziata near Naples and the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project & Poggio Colla Field School in Tuscany. An interdisciplinary project between The University of Texas at Dallas and UT Austin, the Oplontis Project is a collaboration excavating a Roman villa buried by the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The results of the research are available to the public through digital media, including born-digital publication and a 3D navigable model of the buildings and grounds.
When Thomas joined UT Dallas in 2019, he described the university as an “exciting center for art history, whose community enables dynamic research and interdisciplinary collaboration.”
Thomas previously served as director of the Center for the Study of Ancient Italy at UT Austin, where he promoted interdisciplinary education and research in the archaeology and visual culture of ancient Italy from the Bronze Age through the fifth century A.D. He earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from Duke University, a master’s degree in art history from Southern Methodist University and a PhD in art history from UT Austin.
He has taught at SMU, the University of Michigan and UT Austin and held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Tufts University. He is a member of the Meadows Museum Advisory Council at SMU and a board member of the Etruscan Foundation. His publications have focused on the art, architecture, archaeology and numismatics of Etruscan and Roman Italy.
Thomas’ publications include articles in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, American Journal of Numismatics, Etruscan Studies: Journal of the Etruscan Foundation and Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, among others. He co-edited the book Monumentality in Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture: Ideology and Innovation. Thomas is co-editor and author of the forthcoming Volume III of the Oplontis Project’s publication on the architecture and excavation of Villa A.