Career
Mayer was Australian Research Council (ARC) post doctoral research fellow (1998-2000), ARC QEII research fellow (2001-2005) and research fellow (2006-2016) at Australian Catholic University. [4] [5] She was a research fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, in 2006-2007, [6] and a Visiting Researcher in the Center for the Study of Early Christianity at Catholic University of America (2004-2006, 2013-2016). [7] In 2017 she became associate dean for research at Australian Lutheran College within the University of Divinity. [8] In 2017 Mayer was appointed a professor at the same university, [9] and in 2019 she was appointed part-time dean of research strategy there, commencing February 2020. [10]
She has authored or co-authored six monographs and she has edited or co-edited volumes on John Chrysostom, Syrian Antioch, and religious conflict. She also maintains an online bibliography for research in Chrysostom studies. [11]
Mayer has served on an editorial board for Writings from the Greco-Roman World (2006-2016). [12] She is on the editorial board for the Byzantina Australiensia monograph series published by Brill [13] and is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Brill monograph series Critical Approaches to Early Christianity. [14] She was co-founder and editor-in-chief, with Chris L. de Wet and Edwina Murphy, of the Patristics from the Margins series published by Brill Schöningh.[ citation needed ]
She is editor for the Lutheran Theological Journal, [15] associate editor for the Journal of Early Christian Studies, [16] and on the editorial boards for Studies in Late Antiquity (where she was founding member) [17] and the Journal of Early Christian History (formerly Acta Patristica et Byzantina). [18]
Mayer spoke at the international conference Towards the Prehistory of the Byzantine Liturgical Year Festal Homilies and Festal Liturgies in Late Antique Constantinople, Regensburg, in July 2018, [19] and gave keynote addresses at the Pacific Partnership in Late Antiquity conference, Auckland, in July 2018, [20] APECSS conference, Okayama, September 2018, [21] and The Role of Historical Reasoning in Religious Conflicts conference, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, October 2019. [22] In August 2019, Mayer gave the plenary address at the 18th International Conference on Patristic Studies at Oxford University titled “Patristics and Postmodernity: Bridging the Gap”. [23]
She deconstructed the traditional sources used for dating and sequence of Chrysostom's works, leading to a substantially revised chronology. [24] This was followed up by a number of articles co-authored with Pauline Allen that challenged traditional notions of early Christian preaching. [25] [26] [27] Sever J. Voicu, then scriptor graecus at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana described the team of Allen and Mayer as a "ciclone australiano" (Australian cyclone) [28] while in 2011, Alin Suciu described Allen and Mayer as "the two scholars from Australia who changed so much in our understanding of Chrysostom’s preaching activity". [29] Mayer has since continued with studies on the continuing influence of Greek medical thought in late antiquity, [30] religious violence and radicalisation, [31] and the application of cognitive and neuroscience approaches to late antique studies. [32] [33]
