PHILADELPHIA -- Richard Hodges has been named the Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Hodges will join Penn Oct. 1 from his position as director of the Institute of World Archaeology at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

A world-leading classical and early medieval archaeologist specializing in western Europe, Hodges has been director of both The Prince of Wales' Institute of Architecture in London and The British School in Rome.  For the past nine years, he has worked extensively on archaeological and cultural heritage projects in Albania including the creation of a large cultural heritage institute in Tirana and a new archaeological museum in Butrint.

"This is a proud moment for the Penn Museum, for the University of Pennsylvania and, indeed, for anyone who treasures the art and culture of the world's civilizations," Penn President Amy Gutmann said.  "Richard brings an unparalleled level of leadership experience and creativity to the University that will resonate beyond the faculty and the students and will continue to make the Penn Museum a source of knowledge and inspiration."

As director of the British School in Rome from 1988 to 1995, Hodges created new galleries for archaeology and contemporary art, modernized the physical plant and reformed the charter.  A professor at Sheffield University from 1976 to 1995, he was the 2005 Charles Eliot Norton Lecturer at the American Institute of Archaeology and has served since 2003 as a board member of the Packard Humanities Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., for which he has overseen major archaeological projects in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Ukraine.

"Richard has all the right qualities to help us chart the future of the museum," Provost Ronald J. Daniels said.   "He is a scholar of remarkable range, an experienced leader and an intellectual innovator.  I am extremely pleased that we have been successful in bringing him to Penn."

"I am very excited to take up this challenge," Hodges said.  "It is a privilege to be working with such collections and with the distinguished curatorial staff.  The Museum is world-class in every way, and I feel excited about helping to plot its way forward, securing its place on the global stage."

Named an Officer of the British Empire in 1995, Hodges is the author of 10 books on such subjects as archaeology and the beginnings of English society, primitive and peasant markets and towns and trade in the age of Charlemagne.  His "Wall-to-Wall History: The Story of Roystone Grange" was the 1992 British Archaeological Book of the Year.  He is an editor of 16 books and author of more than 100 essays and pamphlets, primarily on archaeology in Italy, Albania and early northwest Europe.

Hodges earned his Ph.D. from Southampton University in 1977, with a thesis on eighth and ninth century ceramics, and his undergraduate degree in archaeology and medieval history from Southampton University in 1973.