Dr Matt Thompson is a researcher in ancient history at the University of Nottingham. After completing his BA and MA at University College London, he spent several years working in commercial archaeology and in museums in the UK and Greece. He next came to the University of Nottingham to undertake a PhD, which he completed in 2022. His PhD thesis, entitled ‘Sparta’s Monumental Agenda’, focused on the triumphal and commemorative monuments erected by the Spartans during the Archaic and Classical periods, and the part that these monuments played in the creation and perpetuation of the Spartan image.

Matt has published on the confrontational monuments of Athens and Sparta in the fifth century, Spartan commemoration of the Persian Wars, and Spartan identity and epigraphy. He is currently working on further publications related to Spartan self-presentation, Archaic Spartan warfare, the role of the Helots in the Lakedaimonian army, and is turning his thesis into a book. Since 2018, he has also served as secretary for the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies and has been involved with the Sparta Live web series since its inception in 2021. In 2025, Matt co-founded and became the chair of SPECS (Spartan and Peloponnesian Early Career Scholars), a new network of early-career researchers working on any aspect of the history, archaeology, and reception of Sparta and the Peloponnese in any period.