Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Americas • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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I am interested in Andean archaeology, the life histories of objects and body modification particularly ancient tattooing. The act of marking one’s skin permanently with designs can tell a story about an individual and their culture at specific times in history. Ancient tattooing practices have potential to inform archaeologists on topics of visual communication, status, identity, societal value, knowledge transmission, iconography, as well as therapeutic treatments and life history events.

Specialization • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Americas • Europe • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum

Jessica is interested in the study of both ancient and modern materials and their modes of deterioration. While at the Penn Museum she has researched and published on inorganic and organic consolidate for ancient Egyptian limestone, and the reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian Palace.

Specialization • Museums
Region • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum

A museum’s collections aren’t dusty items sitting in a basement, but rather materials that are constantly teaching us about the past.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Asia • Europe • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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I am an archaeological scientist focusing on ceramics and interested in the relation between maker and material, and in the mobility of knowledge, people and objects.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Europe
Affiliation • Penn Museum

I am interested in objects and the stories they tell.

Specialization • Conservation • Museums
Region • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum

I treat objects from around the world so that they are stable enough for display.

Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums
Region • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum

Julia is an archaeological objects conservator currently focusing on monumental Egyptian architecture and stone sculpture.

Specialization • Archaeology
Region • Europe • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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My work is comprehensively centred on the archaeology and history of Gordion—capital of the Iron Age kingdom of Phrygia, and one of the pre-eminent settlements of the Middle East in the first millennium BCE. My principal research interest is the character, use, and deposition of metalwork in the momentous and often troubled times of the Iron Age, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, to illuminate continuities and transformations in food production, craft and building work, transport, warfare, and ritual practices.

Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Americas • Asia • Europe • Global • Middle East • Pacific
Affiliation • Penn Museum

I am interested in improving treatment efficacy as well as the examination on of objects using multi -modal imaging, X-radiography, and microscopy.

Specialization • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum

The care and conservation of museum collections must incorporate and prioritize people-centered and community-engaged work.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas • Europe
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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My specialization is in the nexus among archaeological and museum practice, organizational management and governance, economic theory, and the manner in which markets and government properly aligned can protect rather than undermine the future of heritage.

Specialization • Archaeology
Region • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum

A field archaeologist who has excavated in many countries around the globe, Dr. Hafford’s research focuses primarily on ancient economics; in particular, money before most people believe money ever existed.

Specialization • Museums
Region • Africa
Affiliation • Penn Museum

My work has focused on ancient Egyptian literature, in particular Demotic Wisdom literature. I have been a part of the Penn Museum’s expeditions to Abydos (1997-present) and Saqqara (1992-2007). Recent research projects have included the history and significance of materials in the Penn Museum’s Egyptian collection.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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My research focuses on pre-contact Native American mound sites in the Mississippi River Valley in order to understand the complex relationships that existed between monument construction and identity, as well as foodways and politics through archaeological excavation and analysis of the recovered materials. I have also recently begun a West Philadelphia-based community archaeology project. I am committed to local archaeology and believe that education aimed at populations who interact with archaeology sites as part of their quotidian landscape is key to their protection and to engendering respect for both past and present communities.

Specialization • Museums
Region • Asia
Affiliation • Penn Museum

I have an interest in the material culture of Asia and the different ways in which museums acquire collections.

Specialization • Museums
Region • Africa
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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Museum collections provide insight into colonial-era collecting, knowledge production, and display practices that inspire critical investigation of the political, social, and cultural contexts that made the accumulation of material culture possible.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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By positioning communities in a leading role, the Penn Cultural Heritage Center reframes the preservation of cultural heritage within a context of social, political, and economic development. We demonstrate and disseminate our strategy through field projects, research, engagement in public policy, and public programs that emphasize the centrality of community priorities for successful outcomes.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Europe
Affiliation • Penn Museum

My research examines how material objects were used in the creation and maintenance of group identity in the Aegean Bronze Age, particularly Minoan Crete. I focus on objects of adornment and the multigenerational use of communal tombs. I am also committed to making archaeology and museums accessible to a range of audiences through engaging exhibitions and programs.

Specialization • Archaeology
Region • Americas • Asia
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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My research focuses on the historical anthropology and social ecology of landscape formation, biodiversity, and power relations in South Asia. I am interested in the interplay of cultural landscapes and forest history; in the relationship between commemoration, social memory; and in the cultural construction of place in southern India. I have also written extensively on the social history and historical ecology of place and landscape in the Spanish Colonial Americas.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Europe
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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As Keeper of the Mediterranean collections, I am in charge of caring for and providing access to approximately 30,000 object. I currently serve on several museum committees, including the Acquisitions Committee, Collections Committee, KeEMu Committee, and Scientific Testing Committee.

Specialization • Heritage
Region • Americas
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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The decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing offers us a true “window into the past”—one that has revolutionized our understanding of an ancient American people and their political dynamics.

Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums
Region • Global
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum

Over the past two decades, Patrick McGovern has pioneered the exciting interdisciplinary field of Biomolecular Archaeology which is yielding whole new chapters concerning our human ancestry both physical and cultural, medical practice, and of course what our ancient ancestors were eating and drinking.

Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Asia • Europe • Global • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum • Weitzman School of Design
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I’ve always been drawn to social and political issues, whether in the past or indeed how the past comes to matter in the present. As famously said, the past is never dead. It’s not even past.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Asia • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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As an archaeobotanist, I investigate human impact on and adaptation to the environment over millennia, up to and including the present.

Specialization • Archaeology
Region • Americas • Asia
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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Major interests include tracing human-animal relationships including the lives of herd animals, pets, and commensal animals like rats that share human environments.

Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums
Region • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum

Alexis specializes in the conservation of archaeological and ethnographic materials, with research interests that currently include the ethics around the preservation of human remains, and identifying novel materials for the storage and display of museum collections.

Specialization • Archaeology
Region • Africa • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum

Humanity in a prehistoric world of hunter-gatherers and how we became who we are today.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Americas • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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Specialization • Archaeology
Region • Africa • Europe • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum

Ancient Lives Still Speak, It Behooves Us All to Listen

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Asia • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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My work in Syria, Azerbaijan and Iraq investigates how and why ancient kingdoms and empires endured or failed—and how modern empires have repurposed this legacy in surprising ways.

Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Europe
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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Brian Rose has served as the President of the Archaeological Institute of America, and is currently President of the American Research Institute in Turkey, having excavated for the last 40 years at Aphrodisias, Troy, and Gordion, which he now directs.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Asia
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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I seek research problems that involve border-crossing and interactions between China, Korea, Japan, and Mongolia; I have ongoing research projects or collaborations in all four countries.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Americas
Affiliation • Penn Museum

Anne is an Andean archaeologist, with special interest in human interactions with technology, craft production and identity, and textile analysis. She also writes on the potential of object-based learning to impact teaching and learning in higher education.

Specialization • Heritage
Region • Asia
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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My primary activity is online because between Oracc and ePSD (see the links) we cover an immense range of material and reach the maximum possible number of people with it.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Africa • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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Surprising new archaeological discoveries made through ongoing excavations at Abydos show how archaeological research continues to transform our understanding of the society and history of Ancient Egypt.

Specialization • Archaeology
Region • Americas • Europe • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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My research focuses on the tiny discarded items of everyday life – bits of seeds, nut shells, and other plant materials – to reconstruct the foods and beverages that people consumed in the past, and to better understand the specialized knowledge and skillsets of those who produced daily meals.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Asia
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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Conducts pioneering multi-disciplinary research in Laos and Thailand.

Specialization • Museums
Region • Americas
Affiliation • Penn Museum

My research focuses on the history of collecting Native North American material culture, the traditions of painting among the Plains peoples, and reconstructing historic Two-Spirit histories and imagery.

Specialization • Museums
Region • Americas
Affiliation • Penn Museum
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My work seeks broadly to understand and amplify the importance of North American indigenous material culture and related concerns around meaning, practice, and representation.

Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Asia • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum

My current research centers on the origins of writing and the rise of the world’s first cities in southern Mesopotamia (Iraq); as the former director of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and now the Penn Museum, I have been involved in large-scale conservation and cultural heritage projects, particularly in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
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Focused on reconstructing the ancient past of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; dedicated to supporting Iraqi communities impacted by conflict; and, empowering Iraqi archaeologists and heritage professionals to recover, protect and preserve the country’s rich cultural heritage.