Zenta Broka-Lāce is a PhD student at the Faculty of History and Philosophy, University of Latvia, and a Scientific Assistant at the Department of Archaeology, Institute of Latvian History at the University of Latvia. The theme of her PhD project is ‘The development of archaeological thought in Latvia from 19th–21st century’. Her research interests focus around the philosophy of science, and the history and theory of archaeology.
Piraye Hacgüzeller is a senior post-doctoral researcher at the Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities and the Archaeology Department of Ghent University (Belgium). Her research interests are the theory and practice of digital archaeology and more generally digital humanities, in the cases of geospatial linked data and semantic technologies, and geospatial data creation, aggregation, management and analysis. She works on human land use assessments, models and reconstructions in the Anatolian Bronze Age, which links her up with studies in Anthropocene archaeology. She is the deputy director of the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project and co-editor of two recent books on archaeological space: Re-mapping archaeology. Critical perspectives, alternative mappings (2019) and Archaeological spatial analysis. A methdological guide (2020).
Stephennie Mulder is Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin and is President of the Middle East Medievalists Organization. She is a specialist in Islamic art, architectural history and archaeology. She worked for over ten years as the head ceramicist at Balis, a medieval Islamic city in Syria, and has also conducted archaeological and art-historical fieldwork in Syria, Egypt, Turkey and elsewhere in the region. Dr Mulder’s book The shrines of the ‘Alids in medieval Syria. Sunnis, Shi’s and the architecture of coexistence (2014, paperback reissue 2019), received numerous awards. She has also published on matters related to Islamic art, heritage preservation and the trade in looted antiquities. She has appeared in media interviews and written editorials for media outlets such as the BBC, Time, al-Jazeera, the L.A. times, National geographic, and the Art newspaper, and others on cultural-heritage issues, Islamic art, antiquities and the history of sectarian relations in Islam.
Trinidad Rico is Associate Professor and Director of the Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies programme in the Department of Art History at Rutgers University. She is currently a Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences of Stanford University. She has a PhD in anthropology (Stanford University), an MA in principles of conservation (University College London) and a BA in archaeology (University of Cambridge). Her work examines the global rise of heritage industries, its civil societies and discourses, with an emphasis on the Muslim world. She co-authored the volumes Cultural heritage in the Arabian peninsula (2014) and Heritage keywords. Rhetoric and redescription in cultural heritage (2015), and is founding editor of the series Heritage Studies in the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan), as well as editor of the first volume of the series, The making of Islamic heritage. Muslim pasts and heritage presents (2017).
Ian Straughn is a faculty member in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Irvine. He specializes in the archaeology of the Islamic world, having worked in Syria, Jordan, Mali, Armenia and Egypt. Much of his research explores the material and textual traces of landscape and identity in Muslim social contexts as well as developing new techniques of archaeology as pedagogy. His most recent publications explore aspects of heritage discourse and practice within Muslim societies past and present. He has a chapter on the Islamic textual traditions of West Africa in a forthcoming edited volume entitled Timbuktu unbound which should appear in early 2022.
Ruth Young is a Professor of Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, UK. Ruth works in South Asia and the Middle East, with current projects in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Iraq. Her interests include the archaeology of the recent past, the role of archaeology in heritage, and post-conflict archaeology and heritage. Recent publications include The archaeology of South Asia. From the Indus to Asoka (2015, with Robin Coningham), Post-conflict archaeology and cultural heritage (2017, with Paul Newson (eds)), and Historical archaeology and heritage in the Middle East (2019).
Beatriz Marín-Aguilera is a Renfrew Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Teaching Associate at the Centre of Latin American Studies and Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge (UK). Her current research focuses on the archaeology of colonialism, frontiers, and indigeneity from comparative perspectives in Chile, Ethiopia and the western Mediterranean, with a particular emphasis on the subaltern experience. She co-leads an archaeological project in Chile exploring the everyday life at Spanish colonial fortifications in the area of Valdivia (AD 16th-19th centuries). She has published articles in Antiquity, World Archaeology, and the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, among others.
