Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule was the Samuel Zemurray Jr. and Doris Zemurray-Stone Radcliffe Professor at Harvard, teaching in both the Classics and the History of Art and Architecture departments, and in the Core Curriculum. Professor Vermeule launched the Biggs Family Residency in the Classics when she accepted the first Residency at Washington University in 1990. She received her B.A. summa cum laude in Greek and philosophy and her M.A. in classical archaeology from Radcliffe, and her Ph.D. in Greek from Bryn Mawr. During her graduate studies, she attended the American School of Classical Studies at Athens as a Fulbright Scholar and Oxford as a Catherwood Fellow. While a Fulbright Fellow, she discovered a Mycenaean tomb and became interested in classical archaeology; she then pursued many excavations over the course of her career. Professor Vermeule taught at Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Boston University, and lastly at Harvard. Her publications include The Trojan War in Greek Art (1964); Greece in the Bronze Age (1964); an introduction and bibliography to Martin Nilsson’s The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (1972); Toumba Tou Skourou, The Mound of Darkness: A Bronze Age Town on Morphou Bay in Cyprus (with Florence Z. Wolsky 1974); Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (1979); and Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting (with Vassos Karageorghis, 1982). Professor Vermeule received honorary degrees from Harvard, Smith College, Rutgers University, Wheaton College, Tufts University, the University of Pittsburgh, and other schools. She was a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London, President of the American Philological Association, and Vice President of the American Philosophical Society. In 1982, the National Endowment for the Humanities named her the Jefferson Lecturer, the highest honor bestowed by the federal government for intellectual achievement in the humanities. Emily Vermeule introduced countless students to the study of the Classics and inspired, mentored and encouraged a cadre of current classical scholars, many of whom have been named John and Penelope Biggs Residents in the Classics. She set the standard for this exceptional program, and everyone in the Washington University community continues to be grateful and honored to have had her as the first Biggs Resident.