Maura K. Heyn is assistant professor in the Department of Classical Studies at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her doctorate is from UCLA (2002), where she studied the art and archaeology of the eastern Roman provinces. She focuses on the funerary art of Palmyra as a means of understanding the ways in which the inhabitants created social identities in the aftermath of the Roman conquest. Her research on gesture in Palmyra has led to a new project analyzing the pudicitia gesture in Roman art. She has also written several papers on the mural decoration of the Temple of the Palmyrene Gods in Dura Europos.