Faculty
Stephen Acabado
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Areas of Interest:Historical ecology; landscape archaeology; agricultural systems; settlement patterns; emergent complexity; indigenous peoples; Southeast Asia; Philippines; Taiwan
Hans Barnard
Associate Adjunct Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC)
Areas of Interest:Archaeological survey, pottery, organic residue analysis, philosophy of mind
Sarah Beckmann
Assistant Professor, Department of Classics
Areas of Interest:Domestic art and archaeology of the Western Roman provinces
P. Jeffrey Brantingham
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Areas of Interest:Paleoanthropology; simulation modeling; carnivore ecology; hunter-gatherers; stone technology; evolutionary theory; China, Mongolia, Tibet
Aaron A. Burke
Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC); Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies
Areas of Interest:Bronze and Iron Age Levant; Archaeology of Warfare; Egyptian Imperialism in Canaan; Eastern Mediterranean trade in the Bronze Age
Jesse Byock
Professor, Scandinavian Section
Areas of Interest:Viking Age Scandinavia; Icelandic and Scandinavian archaeology, history, and political economy; feud and control of violence; sagas; the North Atlantic world
Meredith Cohen
Associate Professor, Art History
Areas of Interest:Medieval Europe, archaeology of buildings, production and reception of art and architecture, uses and functions of structures and spaces, conservation theory and historiography.
Kara Cooney
Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC)
Areas of Interest:21st Dynasty funerary practice and coffins–reuse, robbery, innovation in a time of crisis; social history studies, including craft specialization, socioeconomic value, reception history and taste change in funerary arts; materiality of funerary rituals; gender studies of rule (queens and female power) and gender studies of funerary beliefs
Jason De Leon
Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies
Areas of Interest:Undocumented Migration, Violence, Materiality, taphonomy and site formation processes, archaeology of the contemporary, forensic science, photoethnography, Latin America, US/Mexico border
Justin Dunnavant
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology
Areas of Interest:Historical Archaeology of Africa and the African Diaspora, Atlantic and Indian Ocean Slave Trade, Oral History, Community-Based Archaeology, Maritime Archaeology, Black Geographies
Sharon E.J. Gerstel
Professor, Department of Art History
Areas of Interest:Art history; religious studies; intersection of ritual and art; monumental painting
Ioanna Kakoulli
Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Areas of Interest:Archaeological materials from the macro to the micro and to the nano length scale; forensic analytical imaging & conservation; materials science; Hellenistic and Roman painting; technology and synthesis of pigments; materials reverse engineering processing and diagenesis
Richard Lesure
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Areas of Interest:Archaeology of early village societies; sociopolitical dynamics and the origin of social inequality; Mesoamerica
Li Min
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology; Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
Areas of Interest:Social archaeology and cultural history of continental East Asia focusing on emergence early civilizations in Neolithic and Bronze Age China. Historical anthropology, material culture, and conceptions of the past in early modern China. Landscape archaeology, integrating systematic survey, analysis of archaeological ceramics, remote sensing imagery, traditional studies of stone inscriptions and numismatics
Sarah Morris
Professor, Department of Classics
Areas of Interest:Prehistoric (Bronze Age Aegean) through classical archaeology of Greece; relations with the Near East; Greek literature
Stella Nair
Associate Professor, Department of Art History
Areas of Interest:Material culture studies; cross-cultural exchange; hemispheric networks; landscape transformations; spatial theory; construction technology; design of Inca royal estates; Tiahuanaco stone carving; colonial Andean paintings; Brazilian urbanism
John K. Papadopoulos
Professor, Department of Classics
Areas of Interest:Aegean prehistory; Greek and Italian archaeology; history and culture of the Classical and later periods; the archaeology of colonialism; the integration of literary evidence with the material record in the study of the past
Ellen Pearlstein
Professor, Department of Information Studies; Conservation Program
Areas of Interest:Plant materials used as paint binders or patination materials on archaeological and ethnographic objects; the developing role of preventive conservation; and conservation education.
Gregson Schachner
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Areas of Interest:North American archaeology; population movement; origins of villages and leadership in agricultural societies; settlement systems and analysis; ceramic analysis; social context of archaeological practice; American Southwest
William M. Schniedewind
Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC)
Areas of Interest:Biblical Studies and Northwest Semitic Languages
Monica L. Smith
Professor, Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair in Indian Studies
Areas of Interest:Urbanism, economic networks, consumption and material culture, anthropology of food, comparative historical archaeology; South Asia, Mediterranean, Southwestern U.S.
Lothar von Falkenhausen
Professor, Department of Art History
Areas of Interest:Archaeology of China, East and Inner Asia, coordination of archaeological materials and historical sources on ancient China, economic history and history of science and technology
Thomas Wake
Associate Adjunct Professor, Department of Anthropology; Director of the Zooarchaeology Lab
Areas of Interest:Archaeological and zooarchaeological research along the eastern Pacific Rim; food and ethnicity; development of social complexity; Caribbean Panama; California; neotropical archaeology; historical archaeology; natural history; human paleoecology; paleoenvironmental reconstruction; comparative osteology
Willeke Z. Wendrich
Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC); Director, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
Areas of Interest:Social context of crafts organization and specialization, ethnoarchaeology, practical use of symbolic space, visual archaeology and the study of regionality versus long distance contacts.
Glenn Wharton
Lore and Gerald Cunard Chair, UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage; Professor, Art History; Professor, Conservation of Material Culture
Areas of Interest:Archaeological Conservation; Illicit trade; Cultural heritage management, Contemporary Art Conservation with specialization in time-based media; Artist archives; Addressing social justice, inclusion, and climate change in conservation.
Greg Woolf
Ronald J. Mellor Distinguished Professor of Ancient History
Areas of Interest:Urbanism; human mobility; culture and imperialism; ecology and resilience, the Roman economy, archaeological theory, Pre-modern Mediterranean World; Temperate Europe