Dr. Bruce D. Smith, Curator of North American Archaeology, is an archaeologist and archaeobotanist whose research focuses on the origins of agriculture worldwide and, more specifically, in the Americas.
Dr. Melinda A. Zeder, Archaeobiology Program Director, is an archaeologist and zooarchaeologist whose research focuses on origins of animal domestication and the impact of agriculture on environment and society in the Near East.
Dr. Dolores Piperno, Curator of Archaeobotany and South American Archaeology, is an archaeologist and archaeobotanist. Her research focuses on the antiquity and character of prehistoric human adaptations in the lowland tropical regions of the world, including agricultural orgins, together with the biogeographical and climatological history of the tropical biome.
Scott Rufolo, Research Affiliate, is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, whose research focuses on complex society, the economy of animal products, and the archaeology of Mesopotamia and surrounding regions.
Dr. Linda Perry, Research Associate, is an archaeologist and archaeobotanist whose research focuses on the origins of both root and seed crop agriculture in lowland systems, pre-contact migration and trade of plant foods, and the relationship between ancient plant food production and social complexity in the lowland Neotropics.
Amanda Henry is a doctoral candidate in the hominid paleobiology program at GWU. Her work focuses on the reconstruction of diet of Neanderthals and early modern humans based on plant microfossils preserved on stone tools and in dental calculus
Dr. Zelalem Assefa, Postdoctoral Fellow, is an archaeologist whose research focuses on zooarchaeological and taphonomic investigations of faunal remains from archaeological sites in East Africa.
Canan Çakırlar, Postdoctoral Fellow, is a zooarchaeologist, whose current research focuses on taxonomic, sclerochronological, and geochemical investigations of mollusk remains from archaeological sites in the Eastern Mediterranean.
