Post-Doc, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
Brown University, Environmental Change Initiative
Postdoctoral Fellow in Archaeology and Environmental Change
About
My research focuses on understanding how people interact with landscapes, past and present, and how they make decisions about land use in the context of specific biological and social environments. I analyze archaeological remains in the context of historical and ethnographic records, ecological data, and behavioral theory to better understand the long-term role of environment in human decision-making processes.
As a Postdoctoral Fellow in Archaeology and Environmental Change at Brown University, appointed jointly between the Environmental Change Initiative (ECI) and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, I teach interdisciplinary courses that bridge environmental studies and archaeology while conducting research into climate change adaptation, environmental change, and agricultural decision making in the eastern Mediterranean. This research is sponsored in part by a postdoctoral Multicountry Research Fellowship from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. At Brown, I lead a working group sponsored by ECI which aims to develop a new integrative graduate education and research traineeship (IGERT) program to investigate human adaptations to and impacts on coastal environments, past and present, in partnership with the University of Rhode Island and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.
My two major field projects are both located in central Turkey. I direct the Kerkenes Ecology and Environmental Archaeology Project at the site of Kerkenes Dağ, where I pursue research at two scales: into the effects of ancient and contemporary land use on the natural vegetation and geomorphology of the region, on the large scale, and into differential use of plant resources between and within individual households, on the small scale. My second major field project is at the ancient city of Gordion, where I lead an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including archaeologists, anthropologists, physical geographers, and historians, to reconstruct the history of coupled cultural and environmental change in the region over the past 5000 years in order to make recommendations about sustainable adaptation to climate change in the region over the next few hundred years.
My other active field projects include analysis of ancient wood use and woodland ecology in the Fayum of Egypt, with the UCLA/RUG Fayum Project, and in northern Turkey, at the Chalcolithic site of Çamlıbel Tarlası. I am also working to use cultural heritage management in Turkey as a tool for education and economic development as a member of the Heritage as Bridge team, part of the Partnerships for a New Beginning program of the US Department of State.
Contact Information
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| Address: | Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World |
