Research Associates

Research associates of the department make significant contributions to the Sydney archaeological community, often giving public talks at one of the archaeological societies and in seminar series.

Dr Damian Evans

Teaching and research interests: Research interests include the archaeology of early historic Southeast Asia, remote sensing applications in archaeology (radar imagery in particular), geographic information science, issues of cartographic representation and the history of mapping in archaeology, the urban context of monumental remains, the role of co-operative water management systems in the rise and fall of complex societies, spatial analysis and theory in archaeology and anthropology.

Dr Craig Barker

Teaching and research interests: Craig Barker graduated with a PhD in Classical Archaeology from the University of Sydney in 2005, researching transport amphorae from the ‘Tombs of the Kings’ at Paphos in Cyprus. He has worked as a tutor and a lecturer for the Department, and is currently Manager of Education and Public Programs for Sydney University Museums, which includes the collections of the Nicholson and Macleay Museums. This work has seen him take a keen interest in public archaeology and the promotion of archaeological work to the wider community. He has worked extensively on fieldwork in Australia, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, and is co-director of the University of Sydney’s excavations of the site of the Hellenistic-Roman theatre of Paphos along with Richard Green and Smadar Gabrieli. His interests include the eastern Mediterranean wine trade, theatre architecture, Hellenistic funerary practices, archaeological education and the portrayal of archaeology in popular culture.

Dr Jaimie Lovell

Teaching and research interests:Lovell’s research focuses on the late prehistory of the southern Levant (Israel, Palestine and Jordan) and particularly centers on the transition to urban systems. She held an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Sydney involving the excavation of one of the earliest olive farms in Jordan – the Wadi Rayyan Archaeological Project (http://sydney.edu.au/arts/archaeology/wadi_rayyan/). She is also the director of the Ritual Landscapes Project (http://www.cbrl.org.uk/jlrl.html) for the Council for British Research in the Levant and was, until recently, the Director of the British Academy’s Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem. Her latest book is Culture, Chronology and the Chalcolithic: Theory and Transition (Oxford : Oxbow 2011)(http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/89487//Location/Oxbow).

Dr Peter (Wei Ming) Jia

Teaching and research interests: Dr Peter W. JIA has a BA in China and MA in Anthropology from Macquarie University, and PhD from the University of Sydney. He has been working in East Asian archaeology for many years. His PhD research focused on the agricultural transition in pr4ehistoric northeast China. Using the method of Palaeo-environmental reconstruction, his PhD research has analysed the process of transition to farming in northeast China. Apart from theoretical study, this research has reinterpreted a large amount of archaeological data from northeast China. His PhD thesis has been published in 2007, with BAR International Series by Archaeopress at Oxford, England. Now, he has a teaching/research ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Sydney working on the project of prehistoric archaeology in the Junggar Bsin, Xinjiang, China in relation to the early contact between East and West in Eurasian prehistory. This four years project involves intensive field survey and excavation in selected areas. This project also includes some scientific analysis in laboratory, such as seeds floatation, starch, phytolith, and pollen studies. He also maintains a special interest in northeast Asian archaeology, specifically in agricultural origins based on residue analysis.

A/Prof. Judy Birmingham

Dr Stephen Bourke

Teaching and research interests: Stephen is a Near Eastern archaeologist and has worked on numerous international archaeological projects since 1980. He currently directs Sydney University excavations at Pella in Jordan, and has done so since 1992. The most recent field season occurred in early 2007, with another season planned for early 2009. Previously he led four seasons of renewed excavations at Chalcolithic Teleilat Ghassul, Jordan, between 1994-99. His interests centre on the Neolithic beginnings of urban life through to the end of the pre-Classical Iron Age in the Levant (ca. 6500-300 BC). He has written or contributed to over 50 publications. Current research projects include work arising out of ongoing excavations at Pella, mainly centring on the massive Fortress temple complex, under excavation since 1994. He is completing a monograph on Sydney University work at Chalcolithic Teleilat Ghassul and working on another based on his Doctoral work on British excavations at Tell Nebi Mend, ancient Qadesh on the Orontes. Connected with this earlier work, he is now researching the Second Millennium BC settlement history of the Homs region for the University of Durham's central Syrian Homs regional Survey. Stephen is NEAF's Treasurer.

Dr Grant Cochrane

Teaching and research interests: After initially studying archaeology in Australia (B.A. (Hons), La Trobe), Grant Cochrane graduated with a PhD in archaeology from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in 2004. His South African research focused on the diversity of lithic technology in the Middle and Later Stone Age, and its implications for hypotheses about the evolution of modern human behaviour. Since returning to Australia, Grant's research focus has been on regional variation in Aboriginal lithic technology, particularly in the late Holocene. He is currently participating in a multi-disciplinary research project studying the geoarchaeology of various landscapes in south central Queensland.

Dr Kate da Costa

Teaching and research interests: I held an ARC research fellowship and grant from 2006 - 2010 to study the Roman Borders of Arabia and Palaestina (BAP), involving field work in northwest Jordan. This followed from my undergraduate and doctoral interests working at Pella (University of Sydney), Umm Qais (various German projects) and Deir Ain Abata (British Museum). I taught two courses during my fellowship - Greek Cities and Sanctuaries/Ancient Mediterranean Lives and a new course, The Archaeology of the Roman East. I have a longstanding interest in the relationship of indigenous cultures with foreign political controllers. I am currently developing a new project, based on sites found during the Borders of Arabia and Palaestina project - Underground 'Ajloun, focussing on sites in northern Jordan containing underground houses.

Dr Smadar Gabrieli

Teaching and research interests: Smadar Gabrieli graduated from the University of Sydney with a PhD in 2006, looking at domestic ceramics from the 13th-19th centuries as representations of local economy and social organisation in Cyprus. She has extensive fieldwork and conservation experience in Mediterranean archaeology. Along with Richard Green and Craig Barker she is co-director of the University of Sydney’s excavations of the Hellenistic-Roman theatre at Nea Paphos.

Prof. Richard Green

Teaching and research interests: Greek pottery, material evidence for the style of ancient theatre performance, excavations at the site of the ancient theatre of Paphos in Cyprus.

Dr Bob Hudson

Teaching and research interests: Bob Hudson (PhD Sydney) is an Honorary Associate with the department, and a visiting professor at the Myanmar University of Culture Field School of Archaeology at Pyay, in Myanmar, the site of the ancient city of Sriksetra. He specialises broadly in the archaeology of Myanmar (Burma) and its neighbouring region, with research covering periods from protohistorical to modern, including Neolithic, Iron Age, Early Urban Period, and the 11th-14th century Bagan period. Other interests include relationships between lowland states and peripheral cultures, Buddhist Art History, and Conservation. Technical specialties related to Southeast Asian archaeology include field survey and excavation, Geographic Information Systems (MapInfo), Remote Sensing, Aerial Photography analysis, Radiocarbon and Thermoluminescence Dating. Bob is also involved in an ongoing international project to genetically track archaeological populations using DNA extracted from modern hair follicle samples. Department, University of Sydney, and a Visiting Professor at the Myanmar Field School of Archaeology at Pyay, Myanmar.

Dr Monica M. Jackson

Teaching and research interests: Monica M. Jackson is a classical archaeologist, author and lecturer on ancient jewellery and the luxury arts. She specialises in ancient jewellery from both the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas. Her particular area of interest is the study of Hellenistic gold jewellery as chronological evidence.

Dr Ina Kehrberg-Ostrasz

Teaching and research interests: Ina Kehrberg graduated with theses in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Sydney, specialising in Eastern Mediterranean cultures and ceramics. She has worked for 30 years in the Levant, concentrating on Classical sites in Jordan, in particular Jarash. Over the past 25 years she co-directed a number of excavations at Jarash (Gerasa) and collaborated with other long-term archaeological projects which led to her foundation in 2003 of the Jarash Artefacts Studies Centre / JASC located on the ancient site. She directs the ‘Jarash Hippodrome Excavations 1984-1996 Research and Publication Project’ for which she has been awarded the Harvard White-Levy Publication Grant from 2004-2007. The award has been conferred to achieve the publication of the research results by her late husband, Dr Antoni A. Ostrasz, and her own work at the hippodrome site. Her other main projects at Jarash are: 1) the Roman city walls excavations, 2) urbanization of Hellenistic to Byzantine Gerasa, and 3) the archaeological studies of the Upper Zeus Temple Project 1996-2000 in which she collaborated as Jarash specialist and appointed Fellow of the French Archaeological Institute / IFAPO. She returned to Sydney in 2004 to work on her final publications and to consolidate her research. She is Hon. Senior Fellow with the Dept of Ancient History and Classics at Macquarie University where she lectures occasionally on the Roman Near East and co-supervises two PhD theses related to her research in Jordan.

Dr Terry Lustig

Teaching and research interests: Terry is an environmental and water engineer who is interested in using the principles of water engineering as a tool for gaining insights into landscape archaeological questions. Questions he has helped with since 1999 are: the historical development of the water networks for Angkorian settlements (Cambodia, Thailand and Laos); the sequence of development of the water supply and drainage systems for Sriksetra (Myanmar); the natural and cultural changes to the Dian lakes (Yunnan).

Dr Dougald O'Reilly

Teaching and research interests: My activities mainly focus on prehistoric Southeast Asia. Recent fieldwork included the excavation of an Iron Age site in Northwest Cambodia. I have a deep interest in the preservation of Cambodia's cultural heritage and am the founder and director of Heritage Watch a non-profit organization working to reduce looting in Cambodia.

Dr Karin Sowada

Teaching and research interests: Karin Sowada graduated in archaeology from the University of Sydney in 1989, and acquired a doctorate in Egyptian archaeology from the University in 2002. In a career spanning two decades, she has worked on archaeological excavations in Egypt (Memphis, Saqqara and Theban Tombs 148, 233 and 147), Israel (Tel Yarmuth), Australia and Jordan (Pella). Karin was Assistant Curator of the Nicholson Museum at Sydney University for nine years until 2005, during which time she curated a number of exhibitions and conducted extensive research on the collection. Karin is widely published in scholarly and popular books and articles, on topics as wide-ranging as mummies, Egyptian sculpture and the archaeology of ancient cemeteries. Her main areas of research interest are economic systems and Egypt’s role in the eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze Age.

Dr Robyn Veal

Teaching and research interests: Robyn Veal graduated in science, business and arts, before completing her doctorate in archaeology at the University of Sydney in 2009 on the fuel economy of Pompeii. Her specialization is environmental archaeology, in particular, wood and charcoal analysis. Her interests include natural resource economics in the ancient world; native Italic and Roman history; landscape archaeology; archaeological theory and whole assemblage analysis; and GIS management systems for archaeology. She has carried out various roles in the field for the last ten years in association with a number of international excavations, especially in Pompeii. More recently she has worked in the Sangro Valley (Abruzzo) and the Tiber Valley (Lazio). She is the appointed charcoal and wood specialist for a number of teams including the Silchester Project (University of Reading, UK); as well as the university’s Industries in Angkor Project (Cambodia), headed up by Dr Mitch Hendrickson. She is an occasional lecturer on Roman and pre-Roman Pompeii, and environmental archaeology at universities in Sydney, and for the HSC Ancient History curriculum. She is currently working on a monograph, ‘Fuelling Pompeii’, which is based on her doctoral thesis; as well as laboratory based experiments on archaeological charcoal designed to test their quality and production temperatures. This work is being carried out at the university’s Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, and the Royal Holloway University of London.

Dr Peter White

Teaching and research interests: Dr White graduated from Melbourne, Cambridge and ANU (PhD 1967). Until 2002 he was Reader in Prehistory at Sydney University. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and has edited the A-rated journal Archaeology in Oceania since 1981. He has written and edited several books and more than 100 articles. He has researched aspects of the prehistory of Near Oceania and Australia since 1963, focusing on stone artefacts (both archaeological and ethnographic), ceramics and archaeozoology. He has excavated in Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Britain and New Ireland. He is involved in studies of trade and exchange, scientific analyses and megafaunal extinction. He regularly writes overviews of the prehistory of the area, in particular during the Pleistocene. His current teaching consists of the supervision of Honours students and assisting graduate and post-doctoral students.