Participant Biographies

Premtim Alaj is a licensed archaeologist at the Archaeological Institute of Kosova. He is currently one of the co-directors of Phase II of the RAPID-Kosova project.

Gabriella Armstrong is a second-year PhD student in Anthropology at Stanford University. She uses remote sensing and GIS to study prehistoric land use in the Balkans.

Sonya Atalay is Professor of Anthropology at MIT, Provost Professor at UMass Amherst Anthropology, and Director of the NSF Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science, a newly established NSF Science and Technology Center.

Erina Baci is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include Balkan prehistory, settlement, mobility, mobility, and GIS applications in archaeology.

Geoff Emberling is an archaeologist and museum curator specializing in North Africa and the Middle East. He has developed two community-engaged projects in northern Sudan at the UNESCO World Heritage sites of Jebel Barkal and El-Kurru since 2015. He is co-founder of the Center for Community Archaeology and Heritage at U-M.

Tiffany Fryer is a historical anthropologist and archaeologist who teaches and writes on colonialism and political violence; research methods, praxis, and politics in historical archaeology and anthropology; and museums, cultural heritage, and collective memory. She is co-founder of the Center for Community Archaeology and Heritage at U-M.

Zhaneta Gjyshja is a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on village life during the Neolithic period, particularly household craft production.

Gabriel Key is a PhD student at the University of Michigan in the Interdepartmental Program in Mediterranean Art and Archaeology. Their research interests include archaeobotany, textiles, and dyes in 1st millennium BCE Italy.

Richard M. Leventhal is Executive Director and Founder of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center of the Penn Museum as well as Professor in the Penn Department of Anthropology. He has written extensively about communities and heritage. For the past decade, he has worked with the indigenous community of Tihosuco focused on a Maya history connected to the 19th century rebellion called the Caste War of the Yucatan or the Maya Social War.

Anwar Mohamed is a Sudanese anthropological archaeologist from El-Kurru, noted for its ancient Kushite heritage. He began his journey as a self-taught enthusiast and later joined the University of Michigan's archaeological project. His work focuses on decolonizing archaeology, enabling local engagement, and researching the ancient Kushite settlements.

Yasmin Moll is a socio-cultural anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker. Her research interests span religion and race in Egypt, with a focus on media and social activism. She was PI on the Humanities Collaboratory-funded project Narrating Nubia (2020-2023).

Jim Moss is a collections manager at the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. His work in the digital humanities seeks to expand awareness and access to museum collections through respectful and ethical curation.

Laura Motta is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Archaeology in the Department of Classical Studies, and Assistant Curator for Archaeobiological collections at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan. She is currently involved in projects in Italy, Egypt, and Turkey, and she is one of the directors of the Gabii Project (Rome).

Krysta Ryzewski is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit. She has been practicing community archaeology for 25 years on projects she's led in the Caribbean, New England, and Michigan.

Dana Salama is an architectural designer and researcher with a background in cultural heritage conservation, co-design, and spatial politics. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Architecture at Taubman College, University of Michigan, where she is a member of the Africa Alliance.

Giulia Saltini Semerari is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Curator of Mediterranean Archaeology at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on Mediterranean interactions, in particular on how local social dynamics intersect with large-scale maritime connectivity patterns. To do so, she integrates traditional field methods with bioarchaeological analyses. A second focus of her research is on gender archaeology and how gender constructs are implicated in dynamics of interaction and mobility. She is currently conducting fieldwork in Italy and Albania.

Raymond Silverman is professor emeritus of History of Art, African Studies, and Museum Studies at U-M. His research explores visual practice in Ethiopia, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, and museum and heritage discourse in Africa.

Brian Stewart is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and Curator of African Archaeology at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. His research explores the deep-time selective contexts and biocultural responses that led to the behavioral evolution of our species in Africa.

David Stone (Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan) studies urbanism, landscapes and economies in the Iron Age to Roman periods of North Africa and Greece.

Lisa C. Young (Teaching Professor, anthropology) researches changes in the organization and foodways of ancient farming communities in the American Southwest. Public outreach and community engagement with diverse stakeholders are integral to her work.