Alan J. Avery-Peck is Kraft-Hiatt Professor in Judaic Studies and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. Prior to moving to Holy Cross in 1993, he held the post of Professor of Classical Studies at Tulane University, New Orleans, where he also was director of Tulane's Jewish Studies Program and, in 1990-1992, Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Avery-Peck's primary research interest is Judaism in the first six centuries C.E., with particular attention to the literature of Rabbinic Judaism. Alongside numerous articles, he has written The Priestly Gift in Mishnah, A Study of Tractate Terumot (Scholars Press, 1981), Mishnah's Division of Agriculture, A History and Theology of Seder Zeraim(Scholars Press, 1985) and four volumes of translation of and commentary on Talmudic treatises: The Talmud of the Land of Israel. A Preliminary Translation and Explanation. Volume VI. Tractate Terumot and Volume V. Tractate Shebiit (University of Chicago Press, 1988 and 1991) and The Talmud of Babylonia. An American Translation. Volume VII. Tractate Besah and Vol. IX. Rosh Hashanah (Scholars Press, 1986 and 1995).  He is editor of New Perspectives on Ancient Judaism. Volume VI. The Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism: Issues in Talmudic Redaction and Interpretation (University Press of America, 1989) and of the journal The Review of Rabbinic Judaism. Ancient, Medieval and Modern (Brill). Along with Jacob Neusner, he is an editor of The Encyclopaedia of Judaism (3 vols., Brill, 2000), The Blackwell Companion to Judaism, The Blackwell Reader in Judaism, and the multi-volume Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism (Brill).

At Holy Cross, Professor Avery-Peck's teaching ranges from courses on ancient Judaism and Biblical Hebrew through topics in modern Jewish history, religion, and ethics, including a seminar on the social and theological implications of the Holocaust.