Current position: Associate Professor of Anthropology

Current affiliation: University of South Alabama

Research website: Link

Research description: I specialize in human mobility and the evolution of social complexity in the Near East and Arabia. As a bioarchaeologist, I examine and interpret past behaviors and adaptations using human skeletal remains, and in particular, by utilizing stable isotopes from ancient teeth and bone. As a bioarchaeologist, my research draws on theoretical frameworks from mortuary archaeology and social agency. My research program investigates prehistoric mortuary landscapes in the United Arab Emirates and seeks to evaluate how shifting mortuary traditions in southeastern Arabia reflect corresponding changes in sociopolitical complexity and subsistence strategies; from this, I am interested in how local identity was reinforced and negotiated through the construction of monumental tombs and treatment of the dead.