[2][3] She studied for an undergraduate degree in Classics at the University of Cambridge, followed by a Master's at UCL in Ancient History.
[1] She completed a PhD at Cambridge in 2007 with a thesis titled "Community Identity in Protohistoric Western Anatolia".
[1] Her research focusses on aspects of cultural interaction and identity, with a focus on the ancient Greek world and Anatolia from the Iron Age to the Classical period.
[7][8] In 2020 Mac Sweeney received an ERC Consolidator Grant for the project Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World.
[12] Since 2019 she is the academic editor of Anatolian Studies, the Journal of the British Institute at Ankara,[13] and served as a judge for the Runciman Award.