I'm an archaeologist who teaches, researches, and writes about precontact archaeology in North America, particularly in the American Southwest and in New England. As of Fall 2026, I am a Visiting Assistant Professor at Southern Connecticut State University.

My research focuses on great houses built by Ancestral Puebloans in northern New Mexico and southwest Colorado in the 11th-13th centuries C.E. The sites I study, including the great houses of Aztec Ruins National Monument, were associated with Chaco Canyon's monumental architecture and its broad regional influence. I am primarily specialized as a ceramic analyst, but my work on these rich assemblages has also led me into research on paleoethnobotany, adobe architecture, ornaments, color, and political structure.

My interests include archaeological theory, Indigenous history and ontologies, cultural heritage, and cultural property law. I have written about topics as diverse as the legal issues surrounding looted art from WWII, the ideological underpinnings of pseudoarchaeology, and environmental leave-no-trace ethics in the Instagram era. I am also particularly interested in public-facing archaeology and in public advocacy for cultural heritage.

Beyond my academic pursuits, I've done a lot of other things! I've worked in museums, including the Mystic Seaport Museum and the Institute for American Indian Studies in Connecticut. I was the Managing Editor of Mainsheet, a scholarly journal of maritime studies that I helped develop. I practiced law for a decade before moving into archaeology. I know several languages, and I've lived abroad in Germany, Austria, Canada, and Belgium.