About
I am a specialist in the archaeology of ancient Egypt and Nubia. I am particularly interested in using material culture to explore broader cultural aspects, for example, colonial relations, shifting perceptions of the dead, or the relationship of material cultural boundaries to social groups within the Egyptian Nile Valley. My research draws on fieldwork projects in Egypt and the Sudan. I am an assistant director of the University of Michigan Abydos Middle Cemetery Project and I co-direct with Laurel Bestock (Brown University) the Uronarti Regional Archaeological Project. The focus of the latter work is the wonderful Middle Kingdom fortress on the island of Uronarti. I look forward to involving Swansea University students in both projects in the future.
I did my undergraduate and postgraduate at Macquarie University in Sydney and got my PhD in 2008 for a thesis completed as a guest at the Freie University in Berlin. Prior to my appointment at Swansea, I taught at Sydney University, Macquarie University, Monash University and the University of Vienna. Most recently, I was a post-doctoral researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. I am currently completing a monograph based on that research titled Material Culture and Society: Abydos Assemblages from the Late Middle Kingdom until the Early New Kingdom. I also drink coffee.