They make the Université de Lyon: Lauriane Locatelli

Portrait of Lauriane Locatelli, a young researcher from the laboratoire d’Histoire et Sources des Mondes Antiques (HiSoMA). Lauriane worked as a postdoctoral researcher as part of the Hospitam project in 2019. The project was led by Claire Fauchon-Claudon, a beneficiary of the first ELAN-ERC grant. She is currently working on the Hairesis project with Madalina Dana, winner of the 2020 IMPULSION call for projects.

What is your background?

After graduating from the Université de Lorraine with a Master’s degree in Classics, I went to the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium to obtain my doctorate in “Pisidian toponymy”, studying under joint supervision with the Université de Franche-Comté. I then had the opportunity to complete a Eurodyssey internship at the Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l’Antiquité (ISTA) in Besançon. As part of my internship, I compiled the data from my thesis into a database. I then obtained a CNRS analysis engineer contract working on the ANR’s « Analyse linguistique des noms de personnes grecs antiques : dictionnaire numérique et imprimé – LGPN-Ling » (Linguistic analysis of ancient Greek names: digital and printed dictionary). I was subsequently hired as a postdoctoral researcher by Claire Fauchon, a research professor at the ENS de Lyon and beneficiary of the ELAN-ERC grant. I then secured a nine-month post-doctoral position working on the Hairesis, project, led by Madalina Dana, research professor at the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 and winner of the 2020 IMPULSION call for projects. 

What has the ELAN-ERC scheme done for you?

The ELAN-ERC scheme enabled me to complete a nine-month post-doctoral fellowship as part of the Hospitam, project, led by Claire Fauchon, with the aim of submitting an ERC Starting-Grant application in the fall of 2020. The Hospitam project focuses on hospitality in the ancient Mediterranean. One of my tasks involved writing the project’s specifications and data management plan. I organized a workshop for researchers with my colleague Sarah Orsini, also a post-doctoral student at the ENS de Lyon, focusing on the data management plan. I also had the opportunity to partially supervise two interns in the year leading up to their Master’s degree. I hope I have given them a passion for research.

You have now been recruited for a post-doctorate thanks to the IMPULSION call for projects. Can you tell us a little bit about the research project you are involved in?

I am currently involved in the Hairesis project which is led by Madalina Dana, a research professor at the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 and winner of the last IMPULSION call for projects. This project focuses on philosophical schools and how they are represented in Greek and Latin texts (6th century BC to 4th century AD). It explores how philosophical schools were introduced into the ancient world. My job is to catalog these texts, build the database and draw up the maps.

So what did you gain from these two programs?

They both helped me a lot. I learned how to write and edit a project during my post-doctorate, which was funded by the ELAN-ERC scheme. I also acquired skills in digital humanities (Fair data) and became more familiar with research data management. I can now write specifications and data management plans (in both French and English) for large-scale ANR or ERC projects. This is a useful new skill. The post-doctorate I secured as part of the IMPULSION call for projects enabled me to consolidate my skills in database construction and creating geo-referenced maps.

Why did you choose the Lyon Saint-Étienne site over other European cities?

One of the reasons I chose to conduct my research at the HiSoMA laboratory is because of the excellent opportunities on offer at the Université de Lyon. It is a site of excellence, at the cutting edge of research, and this is largely thanks to the IDEX (Excellence Initiative) label. It is an environment that encourages the development of new large-scale projects. The HiSoMA laboratory is home to the ERC’s Desert Networks project; the ERC's Synergy Grant DHARMA ; the ANR's AgroCCol project and the IThAC collaborative research project funded by the ANR.
Additionally, Lyon is a beautiful city; it is a great place to live and there are plenty of professional opportunities. You can do things here that are not so easy to do in Paris, like walking to work for example.

How has the lockdown affected your research? How did you organize your work to cope with this period?

The lockdown had a pretty big impact on my work. Even though I was able to continue my work off-site, some project coordination aspects were quite significantly affected. I also had to rely on whatever resources were available to me, as university libraries were closed. Even now, a month after the lockdown, we are still unable to access library materials that cannot be borrowed, and resources from other universities cannot yet be brought in. I had to adapt to these unusual circumstances; I worked at home, in a quiet environment. I was able to continue working at a steady pace and even found time to work out using exercise videos.