This fall five new students began studies in the Interdepartmental Archaeology Graduate Program: Karl La Favre, Brett Kaufman, Hillary Pietricola, Catherine Pratt, and Stephiane Salwen. The Cotsen Institute welcomes them, and looks forward to their contributions!

Karl La Favre hails from Ohio, and received his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2007. For his master's research, Karl is currently working on the lithic material collected during a survey he participated in during the summer of 2007.  This survey was conducted in the highland region between the southern Lake Titicaca Basin and the Moquegua Valley. For his doctoral work, Karl plans to conduct survey in the northern part of the Puno Region, in the Carabaya Province and/or the Sandia Province.  These provinces north of Lake Titicaca contain an ecological transition from highland montane grassland to yungas (montane moist forests) to Amazonia. Karl is primarily interested in the Formative period there, and in the possible economic role this distinct region played in the development of northern Lake Titicaca Basin societies. In the summer of 2008, under Charles Stanish, Professor of Anthropology and Cotsen Institute Director, Karl participated in a few days of preliminary reconnaissance in the Carabaya Province. More generally, Karl is interested in the Formative period in the south-central Andes, in economic anthropology, and in geographic methods and theory.

Brett Kaufman grew up in Wilmette, Illinois. He received his B.A. from Brandeis University in Near Eastern Studies, with a minor in Economics.  Additionally, he has completed post-baccalaureate studies in Chemistry at Columbia University. He has gained experience in the field excavating and surveying American historical sites in upstate New York. While at UCLA, he will focus on the expansion of the Phoenician empire across the Mediterranean Basin. His specific interests include examining the metal microstructure of Phoenician weaponry in order to discern technological advances spanning both the Bronze and Iron Ages.  He will be studying under the direction of his academic advisor, Aaron Burke, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

Hillary Pietricola received her B.A. in Art History/Archaeology and German from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. After graduation she spent a year in Germany as a Fulbright scholar and studied at the University of Hamburg. She has undertaken fieldwork in Italy, including one season in Pompeii and two with the San Martino Project in Torano. At UCLA, Hillary will work with Kathryn McDonnell, Assistant Professor of Classics, on Roman burial practices with a particular focus on Roman Egypt, and will explore the effect of cross-cultural contact in the form of grave goods and burial imagery. Her other research interests include personal adornment and Pompeii.

Catherine Pratt grew up in New Jersey and received her B.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her undergraduate work was well rounded, with a focus on Greek archaeology and language. During the summer, Catherine spent time doing fieldwork on a Cretan Iron Age site,  where she worked as the architect's assistant. While at UCLA, she will be pursuing studies related to the interactions between different cultures during the Late Bronze Age and Dark Age. In particular, she will investigate how these interactions shaped the customs, ideas, and innovations of early Greek society and how these influences continued through Greek history. Catherine is also interested in the major population collapses and dispersals occurring after that time period and the foreign influences gained from it in both art and culture. During her time here, she will be working with John Papadopoulos, Professor of Classics, and Sarah Morris, Steinmetz Professor Classical Archaeology and Material Culture, in the Department of Classics.

Stephanie Salwen comes to UCLA with a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has experience with underwater maritime archaeology and worked to locate and identify three nineteenth-century shipwrecks in Lake Huron as part of her honors thesis. Over the past three summers, she has gained additional archaeological experience working on the excavations at a Bronze Age Tell site in Pecica, Romania. At UCLA, she will work with materials from the Channel Islands to explore the role of transportation technology and trade in the development of complex societies. She plans to focus on the way regional interaction works to promote or inhibit the emergence of social inequality and political complexity, with an emphasis on the development of maritime technology. Stephanie will work under the the direction of her academic advisor, Jeanne Arnold, Professor of Anthropology.