Director

Alexandra Ratzlaff is a Classical and Near Eastern archaeologist specializing in the eastern Mediterranean. As a field archaeologist, her projects have been primarily in Israel, focused on the Late Roman Fort at Yotvata; the Middle Bronze Age Palace at Tel Kabri where she is currently Associate Director; and the Hellenistic – Byzantine coastal and maritime presence at Tel Achziv, Tel Dor, and Caesarea. Her current research examines the impact of maritime trade at small harbors on the Late Antique Economy of the central Levantine coast. This includes a previous coastal survey from Achziv to Ashkelon (modern Israeli coast). As an extension of this research she is currently publishing the ceramic remains from the Hellenistic harbor at Akko and Hellenistic/early Roman excavations at Achziv, and Roman Dor. She is also the Project Lead for the Brandeis Techne Group at Autodesk, a long-term research project aimed at developing new equipment and methodologies for digital imaging in archaeology and the humanities. Ratzlaff’s research has been funded by the US Department of State – Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Fulbright Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, and the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies.

Director of Technology

Erin received her B.A. in History from West Virginia University in 2015 and followed that up with an M.A. in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies from Brandeis University in 2018. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin, where her work focuses on human-environment interactions in the ancient Mediterranean. Her research interests include digital archaeology, GIS, ancient religion, and landscape archaeology. Erin has excavated in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Israel, and Sicily.

Cultural Heritage Director

Michelle received her B.S. in Anthropology and History from SUNY Brockport in 2018 and an M.A. in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies from Brandeis University in 2022, and will begin her Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology at Stanford University in 2024. Her research interests include the archaeology of the Roman provinces, Roman imperialism, antiquities trafficking, and critical heritage studies. She has intensively studied Arabic to support her work in the Middle East and, in 2021, was the recipient of a U.S. Department of Defense-sponsored N.S.E.P. David L. Boren fellowship for the study of Arabic in Oman and a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship. She has excavated in Jordan, Israel, and the United States.

Ceramicist

Tali Erickson-Gini is a senior researcher for the Israel Antiquities Authority. For over 20 years, Dr. Erickson-Gini was the IAA’s Southern Negev sub-district archaeologist and has conducted numerous archaeological excavations and surveys in the Negev. She received her Ph.D. from Hebrew University in 2005 and is an adjunct lecturer for the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology. Her research interests include Nabataean culture and archaeology, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine assemblages from Southern Israel, earthquakes in the archaeological record in the classical period of Southern Israel, the Eastern trade in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Roman military installations, and the archaeology of roads in Southern Israel from the Early Bronze age to the present.

Archaeobotanist

Evan received his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Maine in 2013 and an M.A. in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies from Brandeis University in 2019. His research focuses on Greek and Roman culinary practices with a focus on the use of spices. He uses a methodology for studying ancient food is holistic and includes historical research in Latin and ancient Greek primary sources, archaeological excavations and analyses concentrated on zooarchaeology and archaeobotany, and interpretations of ancient artistic representations of food. His previous research has focused on the use of phytoliths in identifying different varieties of pepper in the archaeological record. He is currently an Anthropological Archaeology Ph.D. candidate at Boston University.

Registrar

Kelsie is currently a Ph.D. student in the department of Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan. They completed an MA at Brandeis in the joint program between the departments of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies & Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and a BA from George Washington University in archaeology and history.

Although focusing on Akkadian and Sumerian texts, Kelsie is interested in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, completing three seasons of fieldwork in Israel, two at Tel Kabri and one at Megiddo. Kelsie is primarily interested in the construction of gender in the cuneiform cultures of ancient Mesopotamia. Topics of particular interest include animal symbolism, the function of monsters in literature, and the reception of the ancient world in modern media. For this research, Kelsie interacts with Assyriological literature in addition to queer theory, critical theory, and post-colonial theory.

Area Supervisor

Dr. Samet is a field archaeologist and a Middle Bronze Age ceramicist. She earned a B.A. in architecture from the Technion and a B.A. and M.A. in archaeology from Tel Aviv University. She received her Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Haifa with a dissertation titled, “Pottery Consumption and International Trade in the Middle Bronze Age Kabri and Other Canaanite Palatial Polities.” Dr. Samet is currently a Research Associate at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa. She has participated in excavations at numerous sites in Israel, including Megiddo, Kabri, Achziv, Tel Asur, and Tel ‘Ein Jezreel, and has directed excavations at ‘Atarot, Jerusalem, and Tel Aphek.

Assistant Area Supervisor

Tyler is a Canadian-American archaeologist who received his B.A. in anthropology from St. Francis Xavier University and is finishing his M.A. in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at Brandeis University. Tyler’s research interests include anthropological archaeology, cross-cultural relationships, and ancient urban development. Tyler completed services in various AmeriCorps programs, Peace Corps Morocco, and the Student Conservation Association in between his degrees. Tyler was awarded a Fulbright Archaeological Research Grant in Bulgaria where he will be continuing his research on ancient colonialism and cross-cultural relationships during 2023-2024.

Assistant Area Supervisor

Helen received her B.A. in Classical Studies and History from Brandeis University and her MSt in Classical Archaeology from Keble College, Oxford. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World (AAMW) program at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research explores local, regionalist responses to Ptolemaic imperialism outside of Egypt, especially through the lenses of land use and economic networks. Her backgrounds in petrography, geophysical prospection, and digital archaeology inform the methodologies of her work.