Directory
Madison Auten
Collections Coordinator, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Americas • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here
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.
Jessica Betz Abel
Project Conservator, Penn Museum
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.
Katy Blanchard
Fowler/Van Santvoord Keeper of the Near Eastern Collections, Penn Museum
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.
Marie-Claude Boileau
Director, Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Asia • Europe • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here
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.
Ann Blair Brownlee
Associate Curator, Mediterranean Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Europe
Affiliation • Penn Museum
I am interested in objects and the stories they tell.
Margaret M. Bruchac
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Coordinator of Native American and Indigenous Studies
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas • Europe
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences
Learn More • Here
I have long been committed to critical studies of Indigenous and colonial histories, material culture, archives, museums, and anthropological practice. My current research examines early collaborations among Indigenous informants and anthropological collectors that influenced the distribution and interpretation of cultural heritage in museums.
Jessica Byler
Project Conservator, Penn Museum
Specialization • Conservation • Museums
Region • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum
I treat objects from around the world so that they are stable enough for display.
Julia Commander
Alice and Herbert Sachs Egyptian Collections Conservator, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums
Region • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum
Julia is an archaeological objects conservator currently focusing on monumental Egyptian architecture and stone sculpture.
Tessa De Alarcon
Project Conservator, Penn Museum
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.
Reyhan Durmaz
Assistant Professor, Religious Studies
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Asia • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences
Learn More • Here
My research focuses on the history of Christianity and Christian-Muslim relations in late antiquity and the medieval Middle East, with an eye towards the issues surrounding religious minorities in the Middle East today.
Paul M. Farber
Senior Research Scholar, Center for Public Art & Space
Specialization • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas • Global
Affiliation • Weitzman School of Design
Learn More • Here
At Penn, I teach about monuments, maps, cities, and art and justice initiatives. Outside of Penn, I am Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab, a public art and history studio that cultivates conversations on the past, present, and future of monuments.
Molly Gleeson
Schwartz Egyptian Collections Conservator, Penn Museum
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.
Peter Gould
Consulting Scholar, Penn Cultural Heritage Center, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas • Europe
Affiliation • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here • Here
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.
Sarah M. Guérin
Assistant Professor, History of Art
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Africa • Europe • Global
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences
Learn More • Here
Michael C. Henry
Adjunct Professor, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation
Specialization • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Americas • Asia • Pacific
Affiliation • Weitzman School of Design
Learn More • Here
Diagnostic thinking and sustainable environmental management for preventive conservation of fixed and movable cultural heritage.
Jennifer Houser Wegner
Associate Curator, Egyptian Section, Penn Museum
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations
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.
Megan C. Kassabaum
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Associate Curator, American Section, Penn Museum
Director, Center for Ancient Studies
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here • Here • Here • Here
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.
Stephen Lang
Lyons Keeper of Collections, Asian Section, Penn Museum
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.
Dwaune Latimer
Jean Friendly Keeper of Collections, African Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Museums
Region • Africa
Affiliation • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here • Here • Here • Here
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.
Brent Leggs
Adjunct Associate Professor, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation
Senior Advisor, Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites
Specialization • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas • Global
Affiliation • Weitzman School of Design
Learn More • Here • Here
Not until Black American contributions in our national history are revered and protected, will our nation revere and protect Black lives and Black humanity. We must elevate and preserve the remarkable stories and places that evoke centuries of BIPOC activism, achievement, and community.
Richard Leventhal
Professor, Anthropology
Curator, American Section, Penn Museum
Executive Director, Penn Cultural Heritage Center, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here
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.
Sarah Linn
Research Liaison, Academic Engagement, Penn Museum
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.
Lynn Makowsky
DeVries Keeper of Collections, Mediterranean Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Europe
Affiliation • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here
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.
Patrick McGovern
Scientific Director, Biomolecular Archaeology Project, Penn Museum
Adjunct Professor, Anthropology
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.
Lynn Meskell
Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor, Anthropology, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and Curator, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Asia • Europe • Global • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum • Weitzman School of Design
Learn More • Here • Here
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.
Naomi F. Miller
Consulting Scholar, Near East Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Asia • Middle East
Affiliation • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here
As an archaeobotanist, I investigate human impact on and adaptation to the environment over millennia, up to and including the present.
Kathleen D. Morrison
Sally and Alvin V. Shoemaker Professor, Anthropology
Curator, Asian Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Asia
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences
Learn More • Here
Alexis North
Project Conservator, Penn Museum
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.
Alessandro Pezzati
Senior Archivist, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Americas • Global
Affiliation • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here
Holly Pittman
Bok Family Professor in the Humanities, History of Art
Curator, Near East Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here
Lauren Ristvet
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Robert H. Dyson, Jr. Associate Curator, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Asia • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here • Here
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.
C. Brian Rose
James B. Pritchard Prof. of Mediterranean Archaeology
Curator-in-Charge, Mediterranean Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Conservation • Museums • Heritage
Region • Europe
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here • Here
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.
Theodore G. Schurr
Professor, Anthropology
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Americas • Asia • Europe • Global • Middle East • Pacific
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences
Learn More • Here
Through DNA analysis, we reconstruct the origin and migration history of human populations, linking evidence from the past with present day understandings of ancestry, genealogy, and history.
Heather J. Sharkey
Professor, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Specialization • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Americas • Global • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences
Learn More • Here
With my students, I aim to produce public-facing scholarship that explores the history of the Penn Museum, the University of Pennsylvania, and associated scholars and resources while drawing connections to the United States, the Middle East and North Africa, and the wider world!
Nancy S. Steinhardt
Professor, East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Curator of Chinese Art, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Asia
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here
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.
Anne Tiballi
Director, Academic Engagement, Penn Museum
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.
Josef Wegner
Professor, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Curator, Egyptian Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums
Region • Africa • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here • Here
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.
Joyce White
Adjunct Professor, Anthropology
Consulting Scholar, Asian Section, Penn Museum
William Wierzbowski
Keeper of Collections, American Section, Penn Museum
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.
Amber N. Wiley
Associate Professor in Historic Preservation
Matt and Erica Nord Director Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites (CPCRS)
Specialization • Museums • Heritage
Region • Americas • Global
Affiliation • Weitzman School of Design
Learn More • Here • Here • Here
My research interests center on the social aspects of design and how it affects urban communities – architecture as a literal and figural structure of power. I focus on the ways local and national bodies have made the claim for the dominating narrative and collective memory of cities and examines how preservation and public history contribute to the creation and maintenance of the identity and sense of place of a city.
Lucy Fowler Williams
Associate Curator and Jeremy A. Sabloff Keeper, American Collections, Penn Museum
Christopher Woods
Williams Director, Penn Museum
Avalon Professor in the Humanities
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.
Mantha Zarmakoupi
Morris Russell and Josephine Chidsey Williams Assistant Professor in Roman Architecture, History of Art
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Europe • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences
Learn More • Here • Here
Zarmakoupi has a multidisciplinary training in Classical Archaeology, History and Theory of Architecture, and Architecture and Engineering and brings together in her research and teaching a specialist’s knowledge of ancient architecture, classical archaeology and underwater archaeology with an interdisciplinary approach to classics and archaeology.
Richard L. Zettler
Associate Professor, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Associate Curator-in-Charge, Near East Section, Penn Museum
Specialization • Archaeology • Museums • Heritage
Region • Middle East
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences • Penn Museum
Learn More • Here • Here
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.
Tukufu Zuberi
Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations
Professor, Sociology and Africana Studies
Specialization • Museums • Heritage
Region • Africa • Americas • Asia • Europe • Global
Affiliation • School of Arts and Sciences
Learn More • Here
My academic production includes teaching, researching, filmmaking, and curating.