Team

Anna Whitemore

President

I am an anthropologist and bioarchaeologist interested in studying the intersection of migration and power, in particular the ways in which individual bodies are shaped by political bodies like states and empires. My graduate research centers around the question: What was it like to live and die in service of the Inka Empire? I will use bioarchaeological and stable isotope analysis to investigate migration under the Inka Empire (ca. 1400-1532 CE), an era of unprecedented long-distance travel and large-scale resettlement in Andean South America. Using a life-course approach, I will collect data on mobility, health, demographics, violence, and body modification in order to assess how the experiences of local populations differed from those of migrants. I ask, what heterogeneities, including gender and ethnicity, made individuals vulnerable during the experience of resettlement? How did resettled communities resist or assimilate in their new environment? How did the political and economic role(s) occupied by migrant communities in Inka society impact their life experiences? Ultimately, I hope to add biocultural and historical perspectives to anthropological discourse on migration and forced resettlement under imperial regimes.

Alex Symons

Vice-President

Alex is a first year PhD student in Anthropology. He received his BA (Hons) in Archaeology from the University of Reading, UK in 2018 and his MSc Archaeological Science from the University of Oxford in 2019. His research interests are in the Middle Eastern Bronze Age, particularly the use of bioarchaeological and computational methods for understanding how humans interact with their changing environment.

Rebecca Gerdes

Conference Chair

Rebecca is PhD candidate in Classics concentrating in Classical Archaeology. She holds a B.A. in Classics and Chemistry (Smith College, 2015), and an M.Sc. in Archaeological Science (University of Oxford, 2016). Her work focuses on integrating archaeological and chemical approaches to reconstructing ancient food practices. In her dissertation research, she is developing new methods for analyzing food residues in ceramics that are specific to the environment of the ancient Mediterranean. She is a member of two excavations in Cyprus, the Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments Project and the Yeronisos Island Expedition. Rebecca is an executive board member and the former president of the Archaeological Science Group at Cornell and a member of Diversitas and the CIAMS Anticolonialism and Antiracism Interest Group, and is involved in archaeology and STEM outreach. She's happy to talk about her experiences in any of these areas.

Liam McDonald

Treasurer

Liam's research at Cornell will focus on dendrochronology and the radiocarbon calibration process. His other research interests include palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, human-environment interaction, scientific approaches to the archaeological record and Roman social and cultural history.

Alice Wolff

GPSA Representative

Alice is an archaeobotanist who looks at past human-plant interactions to understand the connections between past climate change, shifting political regimes, and human agricultural practices. She is currently a third year PhD student in the Medieval Studies Program. Her thesis work at Smith College (A.B. Medieval Studies, 2015) and the University of Cambridge (M.Phil Archaeology (Archaeological Sciences), 2017) focused on early medieval British cereal cultivation and consumption. She has worked in England as an environmental archaeologist on Roman and medieval sites since 2013 and has worked on archaeobotanical assemblages from Europe, North America, and Asia.

Prof. Matthew Velasco

Faculty Advisor