I am a first year PhD student in Archaeological Anthropology interested in the Maya and Mesoamerica. I received a BA in Anthropology at Queens College, CUNY and completed fieldwork at the site of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ (Guatemala). I focused my undergraduate honors thesis on settlement patterns, environment, and socio-spatial organization through an analysis of LiDAR imagery of Late Preclassic (300 BCE – 200 CE) period neighborhoods in Petén, Guatemala.
Some of my research interests include landscape management strategies, the creation of sacred landscapes, and how communities choose to organize themselves within their given environments. In my research, I hope to address the role of socio-spatial organization and landscape management strategies in environmental sustainability and symbiosis. More broadly, I am interested in the dichotomization of “nature” and human beings, and how cultural ontologies of nature impact how people build and behave with their environments. I am also interested in archaeology’s potential as a discipline to contribute to transformative justice and tangible change in local and stakeholder communities.