About the Organisers
Meet the team!
This year, we are mixing things up. Not only do we have a committee of in-house organisers based in Cambridge, we are also hosting a number of external organisers from other institutions around the world who will run their own sessions as part of CASA2. We hope this unique format will promote student-led archaeology both within and beyond the UK, and encourage a greater international discourse between archaeology students of all levels.
The archaeologists responsible for organising our 2018 conference are:
CASA2 Organising Committee:
Jess Bates
I am currently an MPhil student at Cambridge studying Archaeological Science, with my main research focused around ancient DNA analysis of human remains from an Anglo-Saxon site in Cambridgeshire. However, my true passion is the Mesolithic and I will be undertaking a PhD at the University of York in October of this year studying use-wear of Mesolithic stone tools. Finding time for hobbies has been tricky during my MPhil, but I love to have dinner parties with my friends (usually fajitas) and go for walks by the river.
Leah Damman
I am currently a second year PhD candidate at Cambridge and my research focuses on establishing more in depth and cross-disciplinary taphonomic approaches to osteological analysis in co-mingled human-animal burials. My thesis work focuses on the later prehistoric period in the British Isles but I am interested in various regions and periods of time – I’ll go wherever the bones are! Beyond archaeology I’m an avid cook, like to sew and have a slight b-grade action movie addiction.
Kyra Kaercher
I received my MA in Archaeology from Boston University in 2014, and I began my PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology at Cambridge in 2017. My research focuses on the Early Islamic Period in northern Iraqi Kurdistan. I worked at the University of Pennsylvania Museum for three years helping with the new Near East Gallery reinstallation. I have also done fieldwork in Bolivia, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq.
Alice Rose
I am PhD student utilising isotopic analysis of human skeletal remains to study diet and mobility in Medieval Cambridge, with a particular focus on the consequences of the events of the 14th Century. This research is part of the Wellcome Trust project 'After the Plague: Health and history in Medieval Cambridge’.
Bryony Smerdon
I am an MPhil student here at Cambridge, researching funerary practices and notions of identity in the Egyptian Predynastic. I am currently focused on group burial and the emotive aspects of death in ancient Egypt, with an increasing interest in landscape reconstruction and environmental archaeology. In my spare time I can usually be found in a local museum or trying to learn another language.
Emily Tilby
I am a first year PhD student in the Department of Archaeology and Cambridge, based in the Grahame Clarke Zooarchaeology laboratory. My main research interest is in microvertebrates and how they can be used to reconstruct past environments. In addition to using zooarchaeological approaches based on the modern habitat preferences of species I am also interested in how other techniques, such as stable isotope analysis, can be used to derive further environmental information from zooarchaeological specimens. In my PhD research I am focusing on the small mammal fauna of Shanidar Cave to try to reconstruct the conditions experienced by Neanderthals and modern humans during their occupation of the cave.
External Session Organisers:
Christina Leverkus
I am entering the final year of my Masters in archaeology at the University of Oslo, researching power struggles and cooperation in the southeast Norway in the Merovingian period through burial mound construction. More broadly I am interested in transitions in the Iron Age and transmission of ideas, beliefs and traditions across borders. When not researching and writing I'll be out in the forest somewhere exploring a new trail and probably getting lost.
Reinert Skumsnes, Thais Rocha da Silva, Edward Scrivens and Ellen Jones
Thais, Ellie, and Ed are DPhil students at the University of Oxford, and Reinert has recently completed his PhD at the University of Oslo. All four of us work on aspects of gender in ancient Egypt ranging from domestic space and the perception of privacy (Thais), the intersection of Egyptology and Gender Research (Reinert), the intra-familial relationships of elite women (Ellie), and the representation of gendered agency among goddesses (Ed). Our session is part of an ongoing collaboration to explore the use of gender as an analytical lens, in Egyptology and beyond.
Izzy Wisher
I’m currently studying an MSc in Early Prehistory and Human Origins at the University of York, which I’m due to complete in September. I’ll be beginning my PhD at Durham University from October in the visual cognitive foundations behind the production of Upper Palaeolithic figurative rock art. Understanding the minds and behaviours of our ancestors intrigues me, particularly with regards to how they perceived and understood their world. Therefore, my research interests are primarily in the Palaeolithic, and include cognitive evolution, personhood, identity, osseous technology, personal ornaments, and experimental archaeology. I also have an (unhealthy) fascination with Neanderthals!
Sophie Jorgensen-Rideout
I am currently studying for a research Masters in Human Origins at Universiteit Leiden, focusing on fire use in the upper Palaeolithic and the characterisation of upper Palaeolithic hearths. My other research interests include the evolution of fire use in hominins, the role of women and children in dispersal events and impact on identity in these lives, and the integration of queer and disability theories into everyday archaeology and practice. My pronouns are they/them and my twitter handle is @SophieJR6; tweet at me about identity and the Palaeolithic!
Margalida Coll
