A long-distance swimmer, Robert G. Ousterhout (“The Cave-Dwellers”) once splashed his way across the Bosporus from Europe to Asia. He has directed a survey of Cappadocia’s Byzantine settlements at Çanl’ Kilise, near Aksaray. Ousterhout is chair of the department of architectural history and preservation at the University of Illinois; he is currently working on a new book, Byzantine Masons at Work (Princeton University Press, forthcoming).

Veronica G. Kalas (“Monasteries? Heavens, No,”) has spent several summers surveying Middle Byzantine rock-cut architecture in Cappadocia’s Peristrema Valley. “Very few specialists of Byzantium are lucky enough to work in the field,” she says. Kalas is currently a Ph.D. candidate at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.