Ute Wartenburg-Kagan
Ute Wartenberg Kagan, whose primary research focus is on ancient Greek coinage, has spent most of her academic career in the museum world. From 1991 through 1998 she worked as the Curator of Greek Coins in the British Museum in London, and since 1999 she has been the Executive Director of the American Numismatic Society in New York. The American Numismatic Society is the pre-eminent national institution focused on the research and the advancement of the appreciation of coins and related objects. It maintains a museum collection of over 800,000 objects dating from 650 BCE to the present.
Educated in Saarbrucken, Germany, Dr. Wartenberg Kagan was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University where she received her doctorate in papyrology. She has published more than 50 books and articles on numismatics and papyrology, is recognized public speaker, and is frequently interviewed for newspapers, radio, and television. In connection with her active interest in current U. S. coinage, Dr. Wartenberg Kagan has testified about coin design before the Senate Banking Committee, and she has been appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to various coin advisory committees. She was formerly a member of the German national fencing team.
At the DMA Dr. Wartenberg Kagan will provide an entertaining, amusing, and educational introduction to the world of numismatics, including stories of rare and valuable coins, counterfeit coins, the discoveries of treasure coins, and a discussion of how coins are our only means by which we might have a realistic visage of Cleopatra.