Marc Van De Mieroop, professor, is a specialist of the history of the ancient Near East from the beginning of writing to the age of Alexander of Macedon. Besides teaching at Columbia University, he has taught at the University of Oxford and at Yale University.

He is the author of more than 80 articles and reviews, and has published 16 books on various aspects of ancient Near Eastern history. His interests include socio-economic and political history, and he has written extensively on historical methodology as it applies to his field of study. His most recent books include A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 B.C. (2004, rev. ed. 2007); King Hammurabi of Babylon: A Biography (2005); The Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of Ramesses II (2007), and A History of Ancient Egypt (2011). A multi-authored textbook on World History in which he treats the ancient world until the fifth century C.E. is about to appear. His current research focuses on the intellectual history of ancient Babylonia.