A DISTINGUISHED US academic is joining a North-East university's classics and ancient history department.

Professor Edward Harris, from Brooklyn College, City University, New York, will take up his post with Durham University next month.

A university spokesman said: "He has a strong research profile specialising, over the past 20 years, in Greek history of the Archaic and Classical periods and, in more recent years, focusing on legal history and social and economic history.

"Prof Harris has an extensive list of published articles and review articles and his fifth book, A Democracy Ruled by Law: Essays on Law, Society and Politics in Classical Athens, is due for publication."

Prof Harris graduated from Stanford University in 1974 with a BA in classics, and also from Oxford University in 1976, and received an MA and PhD in classical philology from Harvard University.

Meanwhile, Durham University politics PhD student Angelo Salting Goode is taking up an internship at the United Nations' headquarters in New York. He will work for two months at the Department of Political Affairs.

The Ustinov College student, who grew up in the Philippines, said: "I am excited to take part in the international political process at the UN.

"Not only does this opportunity help further my goal of enhancing the multi-cultural mission, it is also a rare privilege to have the chance to contribute a little, in my own way, to the fight waged by our former Chancellor Sir Peter Ustinov, against prejudice, racism, marginalisation and discrimination of all sorts."