People

Jesse Casana - Director, Professor of Anthropology

Jesse's research investigates settlement and land use history, the emergence and development of complex societies, and the dynamic interactions of humans with their environment. His projects explore large regions, embrace long periods of human history, and employ a wide range of remote sensing technologies. Jesse has directed archaeological field projects throughout the Middle East, and oversees remote sensing-based initiatives around the world using historical satellite and aerial imagery, advanced drone-deployed sensors, and ground-based subsurface geophysics.

Madeleine McLeester - Assistant Professor of Anthropology

McLeester is an environmental archaeologist who specializes in late precolonial communities in eastern North America. She investigates agricultural systems in marginal horticultural settings, including during the Little Ice Age, using isotopic and digital techniques. She has ongoing research projects at the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin and Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Illinois.

Grace Ward - SPARCL Postdoc

Grace is an archaeologist and paleoethnobotanist interested in Native American land use practices, especially in the American South. She is currently researching agroforestry practices at early earthwork sites in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Weronika Tomczyk - EEES Postdoc

Weronika is a zooarchaeologist investigating the politics of animal use in the past by combining multispecies anthropology with complex analyses (taphonomic, morphometric, and isotopic) of faunal remains. Her main field projects have been based in northern Peru, but she also has experience working with animal bones from European (in Bulgaria, Georgia, and Poland) and North American (California) archaeological contexts.

Jonathan Alperstein - Graduate Student

Jonathan is an archaeologist who has worked on a wide range of projects, including 20th century trash pits in the Hudson Valley and precolonial pueblo sites in the Southwestern United States. He has recently finished working with a cultural resource management firm in the State of Hawaii. He is interested in historical human ecology and paleoethnobotany.

Nathaniel Kitchel - Research Associate

Nathaniel’s research examines the Pleistocene (Ice Age) and early Holocene peoples of the Americas. He is interested in human-environment interactions among forager populations, especially adaptations to rapid climate change events. He investigates these themes using diverse methods including materials characterization and lithic technological analysis. Nathaniel currently co-directs field projects in the Munsungan Lake region of northern Maine and the south coast of Peru.

Carolin Ferwerda - Research Scientist

Carolin specializes in geospatial analysis and remote sensing applications. She has worked on projects ranging from predicting the effects of earthquakes on LA water supply pipes, to mapping congregations in colonial New England, to analyzing patterns of phytoplankton in Lake Baikal. At SPARCL, she assists with a wide variety of projects, including the CORONA Atlas, surveys of the CT River Valley, SPARC grant projects, and experimental UAV-borne sensors.

Austin Chad Hill - Research Associate

Chad is an archaeologist specializing in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based remote sensing. Chad uses aerial photography and 3d photogrammetry, employing visible and hyperspectral imaging coupled with computer vision technology, to identify archaeological sites, document excavations, and visualize landscapes.

Aryanna Qusba ('25) - Intern

Aryanna is an undergraduate student from New York City. At Dartmouth, she is majoring in Government and Anthropology. Last summer, Aryanna worked in a crew at The Gorge Project at a site on Picuris Pueblo land in New Mexico. She has received a Presidential Scholar’s Undergraduate Research Grant to continue geospatial mapping in New Mexico and other sites.