Elli Bambakidis

B.A., Greek, 1979

M.A., History, 1983

Elli Bambakidis graduated in 1979 with a degree in Classics. She is warmly remembered as an able and active student, one professor praising “her love affair with language, her delight in analyzing structures and weighing words.” Shifting toward archival work, she completed a Masters degree in History in 1983 from Wright State and a Master of Library Science degree from Kent State University in 1996.

Elli worked at the WSU Library in special collections before taking a job as an archivist with the Dayton Metro Library. She has managed one of the largest collections of Women’s Suffrage materials in the country and has published twenty-four archival collections, including that of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Symposiua proceedings which she has written include Preserving the Wright Brothers’ Legacy (2002), and 1913: Preserving the Memories of Dayton's Great Flood (2004). She has taken a leadership role in preserving archival information, both in Dayton and in Ohio.

She has also been very active in the Greek community of Dayton, even running the Greek school for twenty years and regularly superintending the celebration of Greek Independence Day. In 2004, Elli presented an invited talk on America’s Team at the 1906 Olympics at an international symposium in Volos, Greece.

Among her other WSU connections, her husband, Gust Bambakidis, is emeritus professor of Physics, and their three sons are all alumni. The oldest, Nicholas, was a 1993 Honors graduate and is now a neurosurgeon practicing in Arizona.