Peter van Alfen, Ph.D.

Peter van Alfen was reappointed to the CCAC in 2024 and holds the position of representative specifically qualified as a Numismatic Curator.

The Chief Curator at the American Numismatic Society (ANS), Dr. van Alfen has been with the ANS for almost twenty years. Initially hired as curator of ancient Greek coinage, his curatorial responsibilities were later expanded to include the medallic art section. For over a decade, Dr. van Alfen served on the J. Sanford Saltus Award committee, which bestows awards to living artists for achievement in medallic art. In recent years he has been involved in the creation of several of the ANS’s online resources, including the National Endowment for the Humanities funded Hellenistic Royal Coinages project, and the Art of Devastation, a site devoted to the medallic art of the First World War. Dr. van Alfen directs the Society’s flagship educational program, the Eric P. Newman Summer Graduate Seminar, and has served for fifteen years as editor of the Society’s quarterly, ANS Magazine. Dr. van Alfen’s publications include over one dozen books and articles on ancient coinage and monetary systems, as well as on U.S. and European medallic art, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 2019, Dr. van Alfen received the Burnett Anderson Memorial Award for Excellence in Numismatic Writing.

Dr. van Alfen holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.A. in Anthropology (Nautical Archaeology) from Texas A&M University, and a B.A. in Classics from the University of Utah. He has participated in several ancient shipwreck excavations and surveys in Turkey and Egypt and continues to be an Affiliated Scholar with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.