Near East - Turkey; Archaeology/anthropology of societal collapse, rural-urban interactions, animal economies, zooarchaeology, Hittites, Late Bronze/Iron Age, Anatolia. 

After the End: Animal Economies, Collapse, and Continuity in Hittite and Post-Hittite Anatolia.

adcock@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Research focuses on the intersection of the ancient and the Renaissance in Rome. Her interests include Roman Imperial religious art, antiquarianism in Renaissance Rome, collecting history and print culture.

hilarybarker@uchicago.edu

Art History

Near Eastern art and archaeology, with research interests in the Southern Caucasus and its connections with the Near East. Anna received her BS with Honors in Anthropological Sciences and German from Ohio State University, and she has done archaeological fieldwork in Oman, Germany, and Italy. She also conducts archaeobotanical and anthracological analysis, and her undergraduate thesis was based on the study of macrobotanical materials from a Medieval Armenian caravanserai.

aberlekamp@uchicago.edu

NELC

South Asia; Neolithic/Iron Age/Early Historic South India; human-animal relations/human-environmental relations, power and political ecology, historical ecology, animal husbandry and landscape histories, faunal and dental microwear analysis. 

Excavating the Deep History of Degradation: Animal Husbandry and the Environmental Impacts of Livestock Grazing in Pre- and Early Historic South India.

kellywilcox@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Near East; 2nd Millennium BC Anatolia, the distribution of ceramic traditions across Central Anatolia using GIS analyses to examine how those traditions are related to inter-urban road networks.

Performing Power in Hittite Anatolia.

jwcannon@uchicago.edu

NELC

Southern Europe, Mediterranean; Historical ecology, political ecology, domestication, agriculture, arboriculture, archaeobotany, rural communities, posthumanism. 

Cultivation Regimes: Political Ecologies of Domestication at Nadin-Gradina, Croatia, ca 500 BCE - 1700 CE.

jcountryman@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

South America; zooarchaeology, Tairona polity, human-animal interactions, transitions and transformation between the pre-Columbian and colonial periods.

adiazchau@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Near East - Egypt; kingship, its legitimacy, and diverse legitimization strategies in different periods; the materiality of mudbricks in ancient Egypt and on the significance of their use in the construction of royal palaces.

losilva@uchicago.edu

NELC

Western Europe - Mediterranean prehistory; material culture, ritual uses of the human body, embodiment, consumption and identity, political economy, food and cuisine, alcohol and feasting, colonialism, isotope analysis, landscape archaeology. 

Severing Heads and Social Ties: A Biogeochemistry and Material Culture Approach to Contested Bodies in the Late Iron Age of Southern France

MDoppelt@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Research focuses on pre-Columbian art history, with projects ranging from ancient Mesoamerica to the Andes. His interests include Central Mexican writing systems, cases of aniconic visual practice in the pre-Columbian world, and the historiography of pre-Columbian art.

driggers@uchicago.edu

Art History

Egytptian archaeology. She received her B.A. with Honors in Anthropology (Archaeology) and a minor in Geospatial Technologies from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (2017), with a thesis focused on the feasibility of organic residue analysis on shell material. Her research interests include understanding ancient Egyptian settlement patterns and ancient landscapes through the lens of remote sensing, GIS and computer programming. Didi hopes to use these technologies to further propel cultural heritage preservation efforts and education initiatives in Egypt. She has conducted archaeological fieldwork at a number of sites, including in the United States, France, and Egypt, has worked at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Pottery Residue Lab and interned at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. In addition, Didi has worked as a remote sensing research consultant at NASA Langley Research Center (2016) and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2017). Most recently, in Summer 2018, she also completed a Space Archaeology internship at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

relbehaedi@uchicago.edu

NELC

Near East; prehistoric communities of Anatolia, early social complexity, household archaeology, microarchaeology; organization of craft production in early complex societies. Her master thesis was on Neolithic households of western Anatolia.

serkusoz@uchicago.edu

NELC

Mesopotamia. 

mtf@uchicago.edu

NELC

Hidden inequalities of heterarchical societies in Iron Age West Africa, bioarchaeological analysis.

keforsberg@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Africa; archaeology/ancient art, the rock art of East Africa; design/taste; symbolic meanings; art historical methods and theory, GIS, GPS, photography, rock art archiving..

regeorge@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Middle East, Oman, Indian Ocean rim; Citizenship, the nation-state, economics, urban development, aesthetics. Social Death of Things: Intercultural Encounters and Ritualized Consumption in Early Bronze Age Oman (3100-2000 B.C.) 

omar1@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

North America, Arctic/Sub-Arctic; Settler colonialism, ethics, epistemology, religion, landscapes/seascapes/icescapes, ecology, sovereignty, climate, futures.

gilheany@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

USA, Louisiana, French Caribbean, Haiti; Labor and subjectification, urban landscapes, built environment; material culture; craftsmanship, urban experience; loss, displacement, belonging.

Crafting Community: Race, Creative Labor, and Everyday Aesthetics in the Creole Faubourgs of New Orleans, 1790-1896.

cgrant@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Mid-Atlantic USA, urban archaeology, immigration and migration, archaeology of the African Diaspora, nationalism constructions of heritage, public archaeology

ngrigg@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

China, Cultural frontier regions (the Gansu/Hexi Corridor); a study of temporality from the perspective of subsistence practices - utilizing zooarchaeology & paleosoil records

siyung@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

European Celtic societies of the early Middle Ages, especially focusing on the Picts and their interaction with Goidelic-speaking groups. Materiality, material culture theory, semiotics, archaeology of ethnicity

danrhan@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Near Eastern archaeology. Sam is an archaeologist and anthropologist whose research focuses on domestic activity, foodways, and local manifestations of regional interaction in late prehistoric Mesopotamia. He received his BA from Harvard College (‘05) and holds master’s degrees in contemporary Arab studies (Georgetown ‘08) and Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (UChicago ‘14). As Lead Fellow at the Chicago Center for Teaching, he facilitates pedagogical training and development at the university.

slharris@uchicago.edu

NELC

Africa - Egypt/Nubia, Sudan; State Power: ideology, religion and material culture; Archaeology of Ideology: iconography, landscape and ritual. 

In the Houses of the Ram and the Lion: Religious Displays of Royal Socio-Political Subjectivity in the Kushite Temples of Amun and Apedemak.

ddheard@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Ceramics of the Kura-Araxes period of the Eastern Caucasus.

mfheinsc@gmail.com

Anthropology

Mongolia, Inner Asia; Prehistory of Mongolia and the eastern Eurasian steppe; the Xiongnu and steppe empires, mobile pastoralism, bioarchaeological and zooarchaeological methods and theory; multispecies ethnography, human-animal studies, materiality.

Imperial Body-Politic(s): Human-Animal Relationships of the Xiongnu Empire at Elst Ar, Central Mongolia.

emmahite@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Latin America, Peru; Cusco, the Inka, Spanish colonialism in the Andes; landscapes, agriculture, empire, cartography, environment, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany.

Households in Transition: Examining Material Change in Colonial Andean Domestic Economy and Ecology.

rahunter@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

South Asia, South India; Archaeology; time, temporality, memory and historicity; periodization, historical narratives and 'the medieval'; ceramic analysis. 

Tempered by Time: Ceramics and the Fabric of Time in Medieval (ca AD 500-1600) South India.

mannatjohal@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Near Eastern archaeology. Michael studies the metallurgical industries of Bronze Age Anatolia. His dissertation research focuses specifically on the technological repertoire of metallurgical workshops at the site of Tell Atchana (ancient Alalakh), their integration with local resource networks, and their social and economic position vis-à-vis the local palace economy. In addition to this research, he is also a member of the Anatolian Highland Metallurgy Project, which is focused on the examination of Early Bronze Age tin mining on Erciyes Dağ in the hinterlands of Kültepe – ancient Kanesh. Michael’s research interests include: archaeometallurgy, landscape archaeology, history of technology, craft specialization, geoarchaeology, Anatolian Bronze Age, Archaeology of Central Asia, and integration of archaeometric and anthropological methods. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Georgia State University, an M.A. in Near Eastern Archaeology from Durham University, and an M.A. in Near Eastern Art and Archaeology from the University of Chicago.

mjohnson086@uchicago.edu

NELC

East Asia, Japan; Material aspects of Western interaction with early modern Japan (the Dutch at Dejima); Commodities and materiality, cultural property management and tourism; value and commensuration, feasting, early modern globalization and commerce, sociality of economic transactions, alterity.

Dejima: An Archaeology of Intercultural Commerce in Early Modern Japan.

skautz@preservationlongisland.org

Anthropology

Near East; archaeology of Syro-Palestine in the Bronze and Iron Ages, socio-economic interaction and ritual identity in the region, ceramic analysis, and GIS.

emmakerr@uchicago.edu

NELC

Africa, Tanzania/Zambia; Historical archaeology of hunter-gatherers; historical archaeology; landscape archaeology, political ecology; colonialism and post-colonialism, landscape, political ecology, temporality, ethnobotany and archaeobotany.

An Archaeology of the 'Natural': Historical Landscapes of the Sandawe Homeland, Central Tanzania.

mck@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Islamic Archaeology; Interim Director of the CAMEL Lab.

ajlauricella@uchicago.edu

NELC

East Asia - China (Anyang, Late Shang); Bronze Age China, bioarchaeology; childhood; personhood and gender; sacrifice; stable isotope analysis; skeletal pathology and trauma; mortuary practice.

Revisiting Lineage: A Bioarchaeological Life Course Approach to Relatedness in the Late Shang Capital of Yinxu (c. 1200-1050 BCE).

lledin@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

East Asia - China; Shang China, Erligang, agriculture.

liqi@uchicago.edu

Anthropology and EALC (joint)

Mongolia, Eurasian Steppe; Landscape/space/place, pastoralism and mobility; ritual; GIS, regional survey, mortuary archaeology, human osteology, lithics; Bronze Age/Iron Age subsistence shift in West-Central Mongolia. Tracing a Transition: Political Economies of the Bronze and Iron Ages of Mongolia.

kblowry@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Digital applications in archaeology, systems of documentation, digital archives.

dlukas@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Latin America, Peru; Landscape/space/place, pastoralism and mobility; ritual; GIS, regional survey, mortuary archaeology, human osteology, lithics; Bronze Age/Iron Age subsistence shift in West-Central Mongolia. "Tracing a Transition: Political Economies of the Bronze and Iron Ages of Mongolia.

willmccollum@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Islamic Archaeology. Veronica is a maritime archaeologist who studies harbors, exchange networks, and maritime cultural landscapes in the eastern Mediterranean. She is interested in early Islamic trade, coastal communities, and the rise of the Muslim navy. Veronica received her MA from the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M, as well as a certificate in the Conservation of Archaeological Resources. She is a research associate at the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, where she has most recently co-directed the partial excavation and recording of a 3rd Dynasty boat burial at Abusir. Veronica has worked on archaeological projects around the globe, including terrestrial sites in Egypt, Vietnam, and Hawaii, underwater excavations in Alexandria, Greece, Bermuda, and Tobago, and deepwater surveys off Crete and Israel. After three years as a CRM project supervisor in Hawaii, Veronica co-founded a photogrammetry company that creates interactive 3D exhibits for at-risk and inaccessible archaeological sites.

vmmorriss@uchicago.edu

NELC

Studies pre-Columbian and Colonial Latin American art history. Her research explores the multivalence of colonial aesthetics and the ways in which the pre-Columbian tradition was condensed and transformed in colonial art. 

ospina@uchicago.edu

Art History

West Africa, Senegal; Historical archaeology and anthropology of West Africa, specifically Senegal; archaeology of gender and education, domestic archaeology, religion & conversion, food studies, missionization, practice theory, historical ecology, humna/plant relationships, archaeobotany.

Cultivating Catholicism: Practice, Gender, and the 'Civilizing Mission' in Colonial Senegal (ca 1860-1939).

jpacyga@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

West Africa, Mexico, Central America. Postcolonial archaeology, community-based research, activist research methods.

resham@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Egyptian Archaeology.

jreeve@uchicago.edu

NELC

Egyptian Archaeology, with a specialty in zooarchaeology. Sasha's research interests include domestication and animal husbandry in the ancient Near East, state provisioning and household economies, and the link between production strategies and the political economy. Her dissertation work focuses on the use of faunal remains from Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period contexts at Edfu and Dendera to understand if and how production strategies changed after the collapse of the centralized government, and if these changes impacted the economic structure at these settlement sites. Sasha has been a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses in New Kingdom Archaeology and Bioarchaeology at the University of Chicago, and will teach a course on Forensic Archaeology in Winter 2018. She has also been actively involved in museum education at the Oriental Institute where she has given lectures and designed and implemented student and family programs.

srohret@uchicago.edu

NELC

West Africa, Caribbean, Indian Ocean coast archaeology; maritime and nautical archaeology, GIS, Atlantic slave trade.

karooney@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Near Eastern Art and Archaeology. Akiva is a Neubauer Graduate Fellow specializing in Mesopotamian Art and Archaeology. He is interested in mobility during the rise and fall of one of the world’s first urban networks in northern Mesopotamia. Specifically, his research is concerned with mutually transformative interactions on the edges of this network with highland societies of the Kura Araxes Cultural Tradition. Previously, Akiva has worked on genetic diversity in present-day highland Georgia and other regions, and he has published an article on the application of a new methodology for analyzing the sex of ceramic producers to episodes of state-formation at Tell Leilan, Syria. Akiva has excavated in Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and Georgia.

sandersa@uchicago.edu

NELC

Egyptian Archaeology. Émilie's interests include settlement archaeology, the interactions between ancient Egypt and Nubia, and the political uses and misuses of archaeology. She is also interested in the role of museums in transmitting and shaping our modern perceptions of the past. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Classics with honors from McGill University, and has participated in various archaeological excavations in Canada and in France. Since 2015, she has been a member of the Oriental Institute missions excavating at Tell Edfu and Dendera. She has also been working with the Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscapes of the Oriental Institute since 2013, on diverse projects utilizing GIS for archaeological and heritage purposes. She was co-coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Archaeology Workshop in 2015-2016, and is currently working with the Oriental Institute Museum to design the display maps for the renewal of the galleries.

esarrazin@uchicago.edu

NELC

Claudio is a comparatist interested in the construction of cultures and ideologies through myth and religion, with an emphasis on archaeological and anthropological materials, relationship between texts and material cultures. Interested in museums and the construction of academic narratives related to Greco-Roman, Italic, and ANE archaeology. ASCSA Member (Summer School 2016).

cldsnsn@gmail.com

Classics/Comp. Lit.

Egyptian Archaeology, with a particular focuses on monumental architecture, urbanism, landscape archaeology, and the materiality of borders in the ancient Egyptian world. His dissertation traces the development of monumental enclosure walls in ancient Egypt from the Predynastic through the Second Intermediate Period, with special attention to both the construction techniques employed to build such features and the broader social and political meanings of these walling projects. Oren has participated in field projects at Tell Edfu, Dendara, and Mendes, and since 2016 has worked with the Afghan Heritage Mapping Project at the Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscapes.

osiegel@uchicago.edu

NELC

Near Eastern art and archaeology, with research interests in the Bronze Age and Iron Age of the Southern Levant. Her research focuses on the influences of empires like Egypt and Assyria on this region’s culture and development. She received her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and her masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, she has worked at several archaeological sites in Israel including Ashkelon, Tel Shimron, Megiddo, Qumran Caves, and the City of David.

suppes@uchicago.edu

NELC

Islamic Archaeology.

rtate@uchicago.edu

NELC

South Asia - North India; Identity, urbanization, paleoenvironmental research, ceramic technology and trade, geoarchaeology, lithics.

Tradition, Conversion and Place: The Khanzada of Mewat 1200-1950.

mudit@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Private Houses and Palace Administration: Household Economies and Sociopolitical Development in late 3rd Millennium BC Tell Asmar, Mesopotamia.

liset437@uchicago.edu

NELC

Near Eastern Art and Archaeology, Syria-Palestine.

vjvanexel@uchicago.edu

NELC

Latin America, Inka.

The Inka Empire's Economic System and Civil War, 1527-1532.

juanjose.villarias@cchs.csic.es

Anthropology

Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa; Greek colonies on the Black Sea; maritime connectivity, trade networks, ancient economies. Blend of classical archaeology and maritime studies, nautical archaeology, ancient colonial activity.

plwatson@uchicago.edu

Anthropology

Egypt.

raemarie@uchicago.edu

NELC

Near East; Bronze and Iron Age archaeology of the southern Levant, ancient daily life, economy, household archaeology, and city planning.

charleswilson@uchicago.edu

NELC

Research interests: Greek and Near Eastern interactions; ideologies of power in the Early Iron Age. Dissertation theme: What’s in a Name? Identity, Difference, Archaeology, and the Ionian Experience in the Archaic Period.

wilsones@uchicago.edu

Classics, Program in the Ancient Mediterranean World

Near Eastern Art and Archaeology. She is interested in interregional interactions throughout Mesopotamia and Central Asia. She got her BA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she majored in German and anthropology, with a minor in archaeology. After getting an MA through the Center of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, she entered the PhD program in NELC. She attended field school in Belize at Buena Vista and has had subsequent excavation experience in Turkey. She has been on archaeological surveys in Azerbaijan and in Armenia. Since entering beginning her PhD, she has received Kosciuszko Foundation Tuition Scholarship, the Phi Kappa Phi Love of Learning Award, and a FLAS fellowship for studying Turkish.

twolter@uchicago.edu

NELC

Studies history of art and architecture on the Silk Road, with a focus on the arts and culture of the Xianbei (proto-Mongols) and the Sogdians (an Eastern Iranian people). His dissertation discusses sarcophagi of the Northern Dynasties (386-581 CE), a politically divisive but culturally brilliant period in Chinese history.

xgene@uchicago.edu

Art History