Shpresa Gjongecaj

Since 1974 she has been professionally linked to the Institute of Archaeology at the Academy of Albanological Studies. In 1994 she held a Visiting Fellowship at the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Between 1999 and 2007 she was the head of the Department of Antiquities in the Institute of Archaeology at the Academy of Albanological Studies, and from 2008 to 2013 she was Director of the Institute of Archaeology.

Shpresa Gjongecaj Vangjeli (born 6 February 1952) is an Albanian archaeologist and numismatist, who was the Director of the Institute of Archaeology at the Academy of Albanological Studies from 2008 to 2013. She is the recipient of the Vermeil Token from the French Numismatic Society and was appointed a Corresponding Member of the Archaeological Institute of America, both in recognition of her scholarship and services to numismatics.

Gjongecaj was born on 6 February 1952 in Tirana, Albania. She studied at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Tirana in 1969 and graduated in Classical Languages (Latin and Ancient Greek) in 1973. She later received specialized training in numismatics with Olivier Picard at the Sorbonne (Paris IV) and the French School at Athens, with Michel Amandry in the Medal Office in Paris, and with Giovani Gorini (gl) at the University of Padua. In 1983 she was awarded her doctorate, with a thesis entitled "Coins of Illyrian Cities", under the direction of Selim Islami (sq).