Gloria Ferrari Pinney came to Harvard from the University of Chicago, where she taught in the Departments of Art History and Classical Languages and Literatures from 1993 to 1998. She retired in 2003.

Her publications deal with both Roman and Greek art and include Il commercio dei sarcofagi asiatici (Bretschneider 1966); Materiali del Museo Archeologico di Tarquinia XI: I vasi attici a figure rosse del periodo arcaico (Bretschneider 1988); Figures of Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece (University of Chicago Press 2002, James R. Wiseman Book Award 2004); Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta (University of Chicago Press 2008). Articles include "Felicior Augusto: Limes Phalerae and the Ravenna Relief," Opuscula Romana 17 (1989) 33–60; "Figures in the Text: Metaphors and Riddles in the Agamemnon," Classical Philology 92 (1997) 1–45; "The Geography of Time," Ostraka 8 (2000) 359–86; "The Ancient Temple on the Acropolis at Athens," American Journal of Archaeology 106 (2002) 11–35.

Professor Pinney was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the academic year 2011–2012.