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.

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.

Paige Paulsen - Neukom Postdoctoral Fellow

Paige is a landscape archaeologist specialized in remote sensing and spatial modeling methods to explore movement, mobility, and settlement patterns in past societies. Her research examines how people adapted to the challenges and opportunities of arid and mountainous landscapes and how these adaptations intersected with social and political organization. Leveraging high-performance computing, she models human and animal movement to study how people used the landscape at different times. Additionally, she employs geophysical and drone-based remote sensing technologies to uncover archaeological sites in arid regions, advancing our understanding of how ancient societies thrived in extreme environments.

Weronika Tomczyk - EEES Postdoctoral Fellow

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.

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.

Jasper Clayton - Postbaccalaureate Fellow in Anthropology

Jasper is an archaeologist interested in human-environmental interactions along coastlines, focusing on maritime communities and their infrastructural, ecological, and economic relationships to the sea, lagoons and marshes. She is additionally interested in the integration of craft production into regional economies, particularly in relation to seasonal labour, workshop organization and material sourcing. She has worked primarily in the Mediterranean and is ongoingly involved in field projects in Sardina, Croatia, and Maine, USA.