Emma Dench Emma Dench Emma Dench is an English ancient historian, classicist, and academic. She has been McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard University since 2014, and Dean of its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences since 2018. She was previously Professor of Ancient History at Birkbeck College, University of London, and then Professor of Classics and of History at Harvard. Dench was born in York, Yorkshire, England, and grew up near Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. Her father was Jeffery Dench, a Shakespearean actor, and her mother, Betty, was a speech therapist. Her paternal aunt is Judi Dench, an award-winning film
Judi Dench John Mills, and is president of Questors Theatre, Ealing. In May 2006, she became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). She was also patron of Ovingdean Hall School, a special day and boarding school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Brighton, which closed in 2010, and Vice President of The Little Foundation. Dame Judi is also a long-standing and active Vice President of the national disabled people's charity Revitalise. Dench is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. In 1996, she was awarded a DUniv degree from Surrey University and in 2000–2001, she