Lisa Sabbahy has taught Egyptology at The American University in Cairo (AUC) since 2001. Prior to joining AUC, Sabbahy taught at the Cairo Center of the University of Maryland and the University of California at Berkeley. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto in Egyptian archaeology. For the past nine years, Sabbahy has served as director of the MA program in Egyptology and Coptology. She served on the faculty senate from 2013-2015, and participated as part of the executive committee of the senate during the year 2014-2015. During the Spring 2015 and Spring 2017 semesters, she also served on the strategic initiatives task force.

Sabbahy’s areas of special interest include queens of the old and middle kingdom, disease in ancient Egypt, anthropoid clay coffins, position and status of ancient Egyptian women, chariot use in the new kingdom, griffins in ancient Egyptian art, and the iconography of the god Nefertum. Her most recent publications include Annotated Bibliography of the Paleopathology of the Ancient Egyptians 1995-2016, AUC Press eBook, 2nd edition, 2017; “The Middle Bronze Age Egyptian Griffin: Whence and Wither?”  Proceedings from the Company of Images Conference, 2017; “Moving Pictures: Context of Use and Iconography of Chariots in the New Kingdom,” Chariots in Ancient Egypt: The Tano Chariot, a Case Study, Sidestone Press, 2018; All Things Ancient Egyptian: Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World, ABC-Clio Press, 2019; King’s Mother in the Old and Middle Kingdoms,” Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean World, in press for 2020; “Did Akhenaten’s Founding of Akhetaten Cause a Malaria Epidemic?” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, in press for 2020; Kingship and Power in Ancient Egypt: from the Old Kingdom to the Early Middle Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, in press for 2020; Daily Life of Women in Ancient Egypt, ABC-Clio Greenwood, in preparation for 2021.

At AUC, Sabbahy has taught a wide variety of Egyptology courses, but has most regularly taught the following: history of the predynastic to the middle kingdom; art and architecture of the predynastic period to the middle kingdom; art and architecture of the new kingdom to the ptolemaic period; history of the new kingdom and later; archaeological and historical method and theory; material culture; and research design and writing.