Gaia Altenburg has been studying for a BA in Classical Archaeology at Freie Universität Berlin since October 2022. From August 2023 to November 2025, she worked as a student assistant in the DFG project "The Sanctuary of Venus Erycina in Erice", where she gained practical experience in project work and archaeological research. She also took part in excavation campaigns in Erice (2023, 2024) and Agrigento (2024). Further academic impulses came from the summer school "Bildlichkeit und Bildmacht in der Spätantike und im frühen Islam" in Göttingen and from the mentoring program of the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin. She is a native speaker of German and Czech and has C1-level English.