Monthly Archives: October 2026

ASOR-ISAC Teacher Workshop: Bring Archaeology to your Classroom

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TempleOfAphroditeAcropolisAmathusCyprus

ASOR-ISAC Teacher Workshop: Bring Archaeology to your Classroom

Join the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) and the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) for a hands-on workshop created for K–12 educators on November 21, 2026 at 10:00am at the Hilton Chicago during the 2026 Annual Meeting.

Registration deadline: November 9, 2026

Workshop Schedule

10:00am–11:00 am | Investigating Ancient Artifacts

Experience ISAC’s Artifact Analysis activity using replica artifacts. Learn strategies for helping students make observations, form inferences, interpret material evidence, and ask meaningful questions about the past. Find out more about ISAC’s Museum in a Box program where you can bring artifact replicas to your own classroom and explore ASOR’s teacher resources and ISAC’s lesson plans on the ancient world!

11:00am–12:00pm | Archaeology in the Field

Hear firsthand perspectives from an archaeological field director and a student excavation volunteer. Learn what happens on a dig, how discoveries are interpreted, and what students can gain from participating in archaeological fieldwork. A question-and-answer session will follow.

Your Registration Includes:

  • Hands-on artifact-analysis training
    Classroom-ready educational resources
    Information about an upcoming curriculum competition
  • Admission to Saturday’s ASOR poster session and afternoon sessions
  • Digital certificate of completion
  • CPDUs for Illinois Teachers: Up to Five hours available. Saturday Teacher Workshop (2 hours), Poster session attendence (1 hour), ASOR workshop Teaching with the Ancient Near East Today (2 hours)

No previous background in archaeology or the ancient world is required.

Register Now
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2026 ASOR Annual Meeting App

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THE ANNUAL MEETING APP

2026 ASOR Annual Meeting

The 2026 ASOR Annual Meeting is supported by a dedicated mobile app, hosted by Whova, for participants attending in Chicago and remotely. The app provides the complete academic program, speaker and exhibitor listings, and floorplans of the Hilton Chicago.

Registered participants may download the app from Apple’s App Store or Google Play on your phones. 

Download for iPhone
Download for Android

What You Need Before you Start

  • The email address you used to register for the Annual Meeting. You will use this same email to access the app
  • Access to that email’s inbox. Whova will send you a 6-digit code to verify your identity when you create an account.
  • An iPhone or Android Phone. The screenshots below show how to download the app on an iPhone. The steps are very similar for an Android.

STEP 1

Download the app

iPhones

  • In the App Store, search for “Whova – Event & Conference App”
  • Download the app and open once the download is complete

Androids

  • In Google Play, search for “Whova – Event & Conference App”
  • Download the app and open once the download is complete
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STEP 2

Create your account

iPhones & Androids

  • Select the Sign up/ Sign In button
  • Enter the email you used to register for the Annual Meeting (do not choose “sign in with Apple ID option”).
  • Fill in the required information to set up your account
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STEP 3

Verify your account

iPhones & Androids

  • Located message from Whova in your email inbox and copy the verfication code
  • Return to Whova and enter the verification code
  • Select Verify
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STEP 4

Finish profile and access the AM event

iPhones & Androids

  • You may enter additional information about your profile (all are optional settings)
  • Explore the Annual Meeting app
  • Use tabs along the bottom to open up the Agenda, Attendees, Community, and Messages.
  • Additional resources are also available using the boxed links in the middle of the landing page.
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Need help?

If the Annual Meeting event does not appear after following these steps, please check that you used the same email to register for the Annual Meeting.

Still stuck? Email us at jaredkoller@asor.org and we will help you set up your account.

Download for iPhone
Download for Android

ECS Poster and Student Paper Preparation Session

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Early Career Scholars Poster and Student Paper Preparation Session

Preparing a Poster or Student Paper

Join ASOR’s Early Career Scholars on October 30, 2026 at 12:00pm ET via Zoom for a virtual session on preparing a poster or student paper for the 2026 Annual Meeting.


Are you submitting a poster or student paper to the 2026 ASOR Annual Meeting? Drop into our “Preparing a Poster or Student Paper” session this fall. Poster Session Chair Natalia Handziuk will share advice focusing on effective poster composition and presentation. Mandy Porter, a member of the evaluating committee for the Student Paper Award, will speak about expectations for the paper and share tips.

We are here to answer your questions and hope to see you there.

The event is FREE for the ASOR community, but registration is required.

Register Now
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Cultural Heritage Committee Seeks New Members

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Cultural Heritage Committee Seeks New Members

The Cultural Heritage Committee seeks nominations for two openings (including self-nominations) from ASOR members who are interested in serving on the committee. Committee members will serve a three-year term (January 1, 2027 – December 31, 2029) with the option to renew for a second term. Committee members are expected to attend quarterly meetings via Zoom and an in-person meeting at the ASOR Annual Meeting each year.

The Cultural Heritage Committee advises the President, the Executive Director, the Board, and other ASOR leaders regarding initiatives ASOR might undertake, either individually or jointly with other bodies in the field of cultural heritage, to help protect and preserve the cultural heritage of the Near East and the wider Mediterranean. Pre-eminently, the Cultural Heritage Committee advises the President, the Executive Director, the Board, and other ASOR leaders regarding the ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives program (ASOR CHI), regarding both current and prospective ASOR CHI projects. The Cultural Heritage Committee also advises the President, and ASOR’s leadership more generally, on cultural heritage issues affecting ASOR as well as maintains contact with cultural heritage committees in sister learned societies. This committee reserves one line of membership for an Early Career Scholar and three lines of membership for ASOR members from outside of North America, in countries where ASOR promotes Cultural Heritage Initiatives.

In order to receive full consideration by the committee, the online interest form must be submitted by noon ET on November 13, 2026. For questions and concerns, please contact Fred Winter, Committee Chair (fawinterassociates@gmail.com).

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Fieldwork Report: David Rhys Sharpe

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A view from the area of Idalion looking down at the modern village of Dali.

Fulfilling a Freshman’s Dream: Digital Archaeology at Idalion, Cyprus

David Rhys Sharpe, 2026 Eric & Carol Meyers Scholarship Recipient

“You’re majoring in archaeology and computer science? Are you planning to try and combine those?”

I hear that question almost every time I tell someone my undergraduate major. I usually smile politely and respond that yes, I’m looking at how to combine my two majors. There’s just been one problem.

I haven’t known how.

Certainly, I can read research papers, but knowing how to use technology in the field is a different skill entirely. As far back as my freshman year, I wanted to learn the practical side of digital archaeology, but I didn’t have much chance to do so. Eventually, I moved away from pursuing archaeology directly and refocused on biblical studies.

I was one of nine students from Southern Adventist University who joined the American Expedition to Idalion, Cyprus for three weeks of the 2026 season. It was my last class before graduation. Even before the dig started, the scholarship was already a godsend—with graduate school approaching financial pressure on my family had been pronounced. But I wouldn’t realize how much of a godsend it would be until after the dig. One simple opportunity changed my interests and goals in a way I’d never expected. One of the associate directors, Andrew Wright, managed a variety of technological tools for the dig, including positioning sensors, 3D scanners, and a database system. Early on, he started showing interested volunteers how to use these tools. For the first time, I got to see how digital archaeology worked in the field.

A view from the area of Idalion looking down at the modern village of Dali.
A view from the area of Idalion looking down at the modern village of Dali.

The first of these systems was the real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning sensors. Capable of calculating centimeter-level accurate points, the RTK system used a base station that had to be set up and taken down every day. Andrew Wright put another student and I in charge of setting up the RTK sensors each day, making sure they were level and ready to take elevations. This was one of my first practical lessons in using technology in the field—often the most difficult part is not the technology itself. Leveling the tripod and tribrach was by far the most time-consuming and tricky part of the setup process.

Later on, Andrew Wright showed the volunteers how to use an Artec Spider II 3D scanner to create a 3D model of artifacts. A few of us, myself included, had the opportunity to take a scan of an object ourselves. I digitized a small statue fragment found near the beginning of the season. The scanner was both incredibly easy to use and incredibly powerful, creating a detailed model in minutes.

Another incredible opportunity was getting a basic introduction to OCHRE, a database application developed by the University of Chicago. A massive, incredibly sophisticated system, OCHRE provided a powerful, flexible way to keep track of all the data turned up during an excavation. It let us keep track of loci, pottery buckets, features, and special finds with ease. Above any other tool, OCHRE helped me get a feel of how data recording works in the field.

Me during the first week of excavation, cleaning rainwash from a square in the Lower City. Photo Credit: Karis McConnell.
Me during the first week of excavation, cleaning rainwash from a square in the Lower City. Photo Credit: Karis McConnell.

Learning about positioning sensors, 3D scanners, and OCHRE reawakened my dormant interest in digital archaeology. Just as influential, however, was a conversation with another associate director, Valerie Woelfel, about the power GIS can bring to excavations. She had worked on a startling variety of sites, able to contribute her GIS skills to projects spanning different archaeological contexts. That conversation reshaped my research interests. My goal now is to develop skills in digital archaeology in order to be able to contribute in a similar fashion to a variety of archaeological projects.

Although my focus is still biblical studies, my first real taste of digital archaeology demonstrated the power archaeological excavation can bring to textual studies—and the power technology can bring to an excavation. It gave me a reason to continue pursuing archaeology and a way to put it into practice. And that would have been significantly more difficult without this scholarship’s sponsors and their generosity. Receiving a scholarship for Idalion relieved a great deal of financial pressure and opened the door to putting my freshman-year dream into action. 

A sunrise from the dig house uphill from the site.
A sunrise from the dig house uphill from the site.

David Rhys Sharpe is a recent graduate of Southern Adventist University with a B.A. in Archaeology and Computer Science. His passion is studying the world of the Bible and integrating linguistics and archaeological context into textual studies. He is beginning an M.A. program in the Bible and the Ancient Near East at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Project Links: 

Idalion project website: https://ochre.uchicago.edu/project/idalion

Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting “Fieldwork Scholarships” as your gift purpose!

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FOA Webinar Panel: From Tunis to Tataouine

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FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS

From Tunis to Tataouine: ASOR’s Cultural Heritage Partnerships in Tunisia

Friends of ASOR presents the next webinar of the 2026-2027 season: “From Tunis to Tataouine: ASOR’s Cultural Heritage Partnerships in Tunisia” on October 28, 2026, at 1:00 pm EDT, with panelists Emna Mizouni, Safouane Tlili, Assia Sabri, Ibtissem Sabri, and Ines Mathlouthi (moderated by Darren Ashby). This webinar will be free and open to the public. Registration through Zoom (with a valid email address) is required. This webinar will be recorded and all registrants will be sent a recording link in the days following the webinar.

Join us for a panel discussion on ASOR’s partnerships in Tunisia and hear directly from local partners that work to preserve Tunisian heritage. 

View the recording here on YouTube.

Ines Mathlouthi is a leader and project manager at the Tunisian Scouts organization. She has previously worked on TOURATH, a project aimed at preserving and protecting Tunisian national heritage for future generations, in partnership with the US Embassy in Tunis. 

Emna Mizouni is a strategist dedicated to building equitable digital futures working at the intersection of technology, human rights, global policy, and the preservation of global cultural heritage. Her commitment to storytelling and documenting history and heritage led her to found Carthagina, an organization dedicated to preserving Tunisian heritage through digital innovation.

Assia Sabri holds a university degree in accounting and finance. She is also a traditional jewelry maker and civil society activist.

Ibtissem Sabri is a civil society activist in Tataouine in southern Tunisia. She is also a representative on the local council of Tataouine Sud in Douiret.

Safouane Tlili is a photographer who specializes in documenting the material and intangible heritage of Tunisia, especially on the island of Djerba. He has held several art exhibitions and is a civil activist in several human rights and cultural associations.

Register Here

SUPPORT THE WEBINAR PROGRAM!

Friends of ASOR is pleased to announce that the first webinars of the 2026-2027 season will once again be free and open to the public with a goal to raise $10,000 so that the entire webinar season will be free. Will you support this outreach effort with a tax-deductible contribution? All donors/sponsors with gifts of $100 or more will be recognized in subsequent webinars. Make your gift today and select “Webinars” from the drop-down menu.

Donate Now
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2026 Nominees for ASOR Board Elections

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detail of Palermo Cathedral

2026 NOMINEES FOR ASOR BOARD ELECTIONS

Trustee Nominations Committee has selected six highly qualified members to stand for election for four open positions on the Board of Trustees. The Board sets the direction for ASOR and provides oversight for our organization. Among other responsibilities, members of the Board agree to attend two meetings each year, to participate thoughtfully in the governance process, and to contribute financially to ASOR.

There are four candidates running for two openings as Membership-elected Trustees for 3-year terms (Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, Timothy Matney, Stephanie Selover, and Stuart Tyson Smith). There are two candidates for two openings as Institutionally-elected Trustees for 3-year terms (Kiersten Neumann and Jason Ur). All ASOR members are eligible to vote in the Membership-elected Trustee Election, while only Institutional Representatives of the 60 ASOR-member schools may vote in the Institutionally-elected Trustee Election. Missions and brief biographies of the nominees will be available in the ballot.

ASOR will conduct the elections by online ballot, and ballots were sent via email on October 10, 2026. We will send out two reminders, and all ballots must be completed by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, November 13. If you have difficulties completing the online ballot, please contact Marta Ostovich at programs@asor.org.

Nominees for Membership-elected Trustees
(two to be elected)

Tiffany Earley-Spadoni

Dr. Tiffany Earley-Spadoni is Associate Professor of History at the University of Central Florida and Director of the Kurd Qaburstan Project, an ASOR-affiliated excavation of the ancient city of Qabra in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Her archaeological and historical research focuses on landscapes, urbanism, warfare, empires, and digital approaches. She is the author of Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East, recipient of ASOR’s 2025 Frank Moore Cross Book Award. She has received both the ASOR Mesopotamian Fellowship and the Shepard Urgent Action Grant.

Earley-Spadoni served as Chair of the Early Career Scholars Committee from 2018 to 2024 and also served on the Chairs Coordinating Council and Finance Committee. She currently serves on the Honors and Awards Committee. She received ASOR Membership Service Awards in 2023 and 2024 for her contributions to the organization. She has chaired more than twenty ASOR annual meeting sessions and workshops and founded the Digital Archaeology and History session, now an ASOR Standing Session.

Mission Statement:

Over the past eighteen years, I have participated in ASOR as a member, presenter, session organizer, committee member and chair, mentor, excavation director, grant recipient, and student volunteer. These experiences have given me a strong appreciation for ASOR’s role in advancing research, supporting fieldwork, and fostering scholarly community.

If elected to the Board of Trustees, I will focus on two priorities: advocating for increased grant funding opportunities for ASOR members in light of reduced federal support and supporting ASOR’s early career scholars. I will support expansion of ASOR-administered fellowships, project grants, and travel support. I am also committed to strengthening mentorship, training, and networking programs for early career scholars. These efforts are essential to help members navigate funding challenges and ensure opportunities for the next generation of researchers.

Throughout my ASOR service, I have worked to create opportunities for members to connect, collaborate, and develop new skills. As a trustee, I would build on that experience and work collaboratively to ensure ASOR remains a strong, sustainable, and intellectually vibrant organization for years to come.

photo of Timothy Matney
Timothy Matney

Timothy Matney (BA Institute of Archaeology, London 1987, MA 1991 and PhD 1993 University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Akron. His areas of research include urbanism, the Early Bronze and Iron Ages, Neo-Assyrian archaeology, geophysics, and rurality in imperial Assyria. Matney co-directed excavations for seven seasons at the Early Bronze Age city of Titriş Höyük with Guillermo Algaze (1994-1999) and directed excavations at Neo-Assyrian administrative center of Ziyaret Tepe (1997-2014). His co-authored volume Ziyaret Tepe: Exploring the Anatolian Frontier of the Assyrian Empire (with J. MacGinnis, D. Wicke, and K. Köroğlu) won the 2019 AIA Felicia A. Holton Book Award for the best work representing archaeology to the public. Matney is currently editing the final publications of both the Titriş Höyük and Ziyaret Tepe excavations. His current ASOR-affiliated fieldwork, started in 2023, the Sebittu Project explores seven small villages in the Neo-Assyrian imperial heartland of the Erbil Plain in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. Matney has been a regular participant at ASOR meetings since giving his first ASOR paper in 1995 and served on the Baghdad Committee at ASOR.

Mission Statement:

As a long-time participant at ASOR, I am always impressed at how many things ASOR does well in its mission to advance archaeology, inform the public, and serve as a steward for cultural heritage in the Near East. One of the biggest challenges that scholars now face in the US are disruptions to decades-old federal support system for archaeological fieldwork (e.g., NSF and NEH) which were the mainstay of many early career academics. ASOR already provides over two dozen grants and fellowships. One question to ask is whether, at this junction, it is possible to find resources for ASOR to do even more to fund fieldwork for those at the start of their careers. Likewise, I have always worked with the local communities where my fieldwork is located to give back knowledge of what our research has revealed about the past. Efforts like giving public lectures in the villages near my field sites, designing permanent displays at regional museums, and training local archaeologists in field techniques are common at many projects. Recently, I decided to take things a step further and build local infrastructure by providing permanent geophysical equipment to the General Directorate in Erbil so that staff, after training, could conduct surveys themselves. In the case of Iraq, this allows local archaeologists to document sites endangered by economic development, changes in land use, and conflict. I would like to help expand ASOR’s active cultural heritage initiatives by finding more resources to foster these kinds of collaborations with our partners in host countries.

Stephanie Selover

Stephanie Selover (MA and PhD, University of Chicago; BA, Stanford University) is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington. Her research interests and publications focus on the domestic and technological archaeology of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Anatolia, the domestic archaeology of Iron Age Jordan, the archaeology of warfare and violence in prehistoric Anatolia, and the effects of modern politics on the archaeology of the Middle East. She has excavated archaeological sites in Jordan, Türkiye, Syria, Israel, Italy, and the United States. She is currently Co-Director of the excavations at Çadır Höyük in Türkiye and Field Director at Khirbat al-Balua in Jordan.

Mission Statement:

I have been a member of ASOR since 2007 and attended nearly all annual meetings since then. I am also a member of the Committee on Archaeological Research and Policy and the Committee on Growth, Innovation, and Visibility.

As an archaeologist and professor, I believe it is the duty of archaeology not only to interpret the past, but also to make it as accessible to as many people as possible. As an undergraduate, I was able to participate in my first excavations because of scholarships provided through my university. Those opportunities allowed me to discover my passion for archaeology and cultural heritage, a passion that has not abated to this day.

I firmly believe that archaeology should be accessible to anyone who wishes to participate, and I have always worked to help students find the financial resources necessary to attend field schools. I also believe strongly in the importance of community in archaeology. Excavations should be, first and foremost, part of and responsive to, the local community, with its interests and needs serving as a foundation for excavation goals.

If elected, I hope to continue supporting ASOR’s commitment to being a safe, open, and welcoming organization for all people, improving financial accessibility and support for students, and providing opportunities and funding for better incorporating local communities into archaeological research and practice.

Stuart Tyson Smith

Stuart Tyson Smith is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (M.S. Ed. from USC and M.A. and Ph.D. in Archaeology from UCLA). At UCSB, he has served as Chair of Anthropology and Director of the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research. Ancient Egyptian colonialism, intercultural interaction, identity, and the origins of the Napatan state, whose rulers conquered Egypt becoming Pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty, provide the focus of his current archaeological research. He has published on the dynamics of Egyptian imperialism and royal ideology, the use of sealings in administration, death and burial in ancient Egypt and Nubia, and the ethnic, social and economic dynamics of interaction and colonialism between ancient Egypt and Nubia. In a new line of research, he applies a postcolonial critique to modern views of ancient Egypt as not truly African and Nubia as its subordinate. Smith’s material specialization lies in ceramic analysis, including the chemical characterization of absorbed residues. He is also an active field archaeologist, having excavated in Egypt and since 1997 directed archaeological projects in Sudanese Nubia, in particular at Tombos with Sudanese archaeologist Prof. Mohamed Faroug Ali (Africa Institute, UAE) and bioarchaeologist Prof. Michele Buzon (Purdue). With fieldwork in Sudan made untenable by the civil war, he has joined Egyptian archaeologist Dr. Essam Nagy and Prof. Danielle Candelora (Holy Cross) as co-Director of the Osiris-Ptah Nebankh Project, a Nubian (Kushite) chapel at Karnak Temple in Luxor, Egypt.

Mission Statement:

I have been increasingly involved in ASOR with the organization’s broadening of regional focus from its traditional emphasis on the Levant to the wider Mediterranean world, western and central Asia, and especially for me north Africa. I also appreciate the increasing engagement with theoretical perspectives that cross cut regional specialties, making ASOR a welcoming place for often marginalized areas of study like Nubiology. As a scholar focused on Africa, I have also been impressed by the ASOR’s commitment to making a difference in the context of this expanded focus by pursuing donations and supporting local scholars, particularly in places with critical needs like the recent initiatives in Libya and Sudan, helping to preserve heritage and repair the damage of civil war. One of my goals as a member of ASOR’s Board of Trustees would be to continue to foster and develop this larger regional focus, which I feel strongly benefits the organization as a whole. Promoting diversity in our field is also a priority for me, especially in these trying times. I would work to maintain and develop endowments for supporting the participation of students from underrepresented groups and indigenous students and scholars from the regions we study who do not have the resources to attend the annual meetings and acquire training and expertise through fieldwork.

Nominees for Institutionally-elected Trustees
(two to be elected):

Kiersten Neumann

Kiersten Neumann is an art historian, archaeologist, curator, and educator specializing in ancient West Asia, with a focus on Assyria and Persia and their connections with Arabia. She is Curator of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) Museum, Research Associate at ISAC, and Lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. Her work explores sensory experience, ritualized practice, and visual culture, as well as museum practice, collecting histories, provenance research, and cultural heritage preservation. She has curated numerous exhibitions at the ISAC Museum, including most recently Artifacts Also Die (2023) and Megiddo: A City Unearthed, A Past Imagined (2025–26), and the reinstallation of the museum’s permanent galleries (2019). She is co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East (2022) and Scribal Worlds: Scholarship and classification in cuneiform cultures (2026). She has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Turkey (Tell Tayinat) and Greece (Athenian Agora), and is part of the Nineveh East Archaeological Project, a collaboration between the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and ISAC. She also collaborates on international museum, art, and cultural heritage projects, and works with diaspora artists and communities to advocate for and renew engagement with the heritage of West Asia. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, she earned her B.A. and M.A. from the University of British Columbia and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (2014).

Mission Statement:

Joining ASOR’s Board of Trustees in 2024 opened a new window onto the organization and deepened my interest in serving. I now chair the Development Committee; co-chair the Program Committee and the new Friends of ASOR Committee; and serve on the Executive and Finance Committees, the Chairs Coordinating Council, and the editorial advisory committee of The Ancient Near East Today. Seeing how a concern raised by a single committee member moves through every level of the organization has been invaluable. When I first ran for the Board, I hoped to bring greater recognition to the museum world: this year’s plenary speaker is Kim Benzel, Curator in Charge of Ancient West Asian Art at The Met; more support is now available to members working with collections; and the Museum Professionals Working Group I co-founded in 2022 continues to meet each year at the Annual Meeting. I also wanted to build partnerships with scholars across the regions at the heart of ASOR’s work, which led me to establish the Tigris Travel Grant in 2024; it has now brought five scholars from Iraq and its Kurdistan Region to the Annual Meeting.

ASOR has always stood out to me for its collegiality as much as its scholarship, yet our field is marked by deep rifts right now, felt across our membership. I believe more strongly than ever that we need policies members can have confidence in and that reflect our shared values and ethical commitments. On the Program Committee, I’ve worked to apply our Policy on Professional Conduct consistently and transparently, and I’m encouraged by the work of the Taskforce now reviewing it. To members who feel unheard, my ask is simply to get involved—to join a committee, talk to trustees, and bring your perspective to the conversations that lead to change. Through it all, I remain heartened by ASOR’s growth: its expanding geographical and chronological reach traces a map with increasingly blurred boundaries, one that better reflects what our research keeps showing—an ancient world of widespread trade and contact over land and sea, with communities and their heritage continuing into the present.

Jason Ur

Jason Ur is Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specializes in early urbanism, landscape archaeology, and remote sensing, particularly the use of declassified US intelligence imagery. He was trained in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania (BA 1994) and in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago (PhD 2004). He has directed field surveys in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. He is the author of Urbanism and Cultural Landscapes in Northeastern Syria: The Tell Hamoukar Survey, 1999-2001 (2010). Since 2012, he has directed the CAP-affiliated Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey, an archaeological survey in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq. He is also preparing a history of Mesopotamian cities.

Ur joined ASOR as a student member in the late 1990s. He held the ASOR Mesopotamian Fellowship in 2000-2001 and served on the Committee on Mesopotamian Civilization from 2009-2013. He was the plenary speaker at the 2014 ASOR annual meeting. He organized and chaired the Settlement and Society in the Ancient Near East session from 2008-2010. The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq session, which he founded and chaired from 2017-2019, is now a Standing Session. He was first elected to ASOR’s Board of Trustees as Harvard’s Institutional Trustee in 2021 and has also served on the Board’s Executive Committee since 2025.

Mission Statement:

As a member of ASOR’s Board of Trustees, I will continue to promote its mission to create and disseminate knowledge of the history and culture of the societies of the Near East, past and present. I advocate for a geographically-inclusive ASOR that involves broader areas of West Asia beyond ASOR’s traditional areas of strength, and a comparative anthropological perspective to complement its culture-historical emphases. I am particularly interested to amplify new voices in ASOR: those of our research partners in the Middle East, and those of the next generation of scholars in our graduate and undergraduate classrooms. Finally, I hope to advocate for digital methods of research and outreach, with the goal of making ASOR members’ scholarship more accessible to our colleagues, to the public, to stakeholders in the countries where we conduct our research, and to future generations.

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2026 Student Paper Award

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2026 ANNUAL MEETING STUDENT PAPER AWARD

ASOR is accepting applications for the 2026 Student Paper Award. This award is conferred upon the author(s) of a paper presented (in-person or online) during the 2026 hybrid ASOR Annual Meeting that conveys the results of a study about ancient Near Eastern and wider Mediterranean societies in a clear, understandable and convincing fashion. The first author and presenter of the paper must be a registered student at the time of presentation in order to be eligible for consideration for this award. This year the award is accompanied by a $500 prize.

Students will need to complete the following steps by November 4 to be considered for the award:

1. Please complete this Google Form in order to apply for the Student Paper Award.

2. Upload your recorded presentation to ASOR’s Student Award Application Dropbox folder by navigating to the 2026 Annual Meeting Presenter Information page. From there, you will find instructions and the Dropbox link, as well as tips and tutorials for presenters.

Applications and recorded paper presentations are both due by November 4.

Please note that this award is independent of the Sean Dever Memorial Prize, which is conferred by the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. To learn more about Awards presented at the Annual Meeting, please visit the Honors and Awards page. For questions and inquiries please email info@asor.org.

Aaren Zhou, winner of the 2025 Student Paper Award.
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ECS Fall Brown Bag: Beyond the Tenure Track

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Sunset at Brac Island Croatia

Early Career Scholars Fall Brown Bag: Beyond the Tenure Track

Panel Discussion: Beyond the Tenure Track

What does an archaeology career look like outside a traditional academic appointment? Join ASOR’s Early Career Scholars on October 16, 2026 at 12:00pm ET via Zoom for the Fall Brown Bag, “Beyond the Tenure Track,” a panel on career paths and opportunities outside of academia.

 

This discussion features panelists Zuzana Chovanec, Anashya Srinivasan, and Amanda Hope Haley—professionals working in public-facing archaeology writing, cultural resource management, the U.S. Department of State, and the tourism sector. They’ll share how they built their careers, what their work looks like day to day, and how the skills you’re developing now can translate into a range of pathways. Whether you’re a student thinking about your first job or an early career scholar looking for some advice, we hope to see you there!

The event, a part of our Brown Bag lunch series, is FREE for the ASOR community, but registration is required.

Register Now

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News from ASOR’s President and Looking for Your Input

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News from ASOR’s President and Looking for Your Input

October 5, 2026

Dear All,

As our profession grows and changes, one of my highest priorities as ASOR president is to involve you, our members, directly in the discussion and decision-making about ASOR’s important policies and initiatives. With the Annual Meeting approaching, I want to share some information about what to expect there and what has been happening at ASOR over the summer.

Please take a look at the Annual Meeting schedule and find the exciting talks that interest you most. I want to draw your attention to two new parts of the meeting:

Meet Your Board Members: On Friday, November 20, at 10:20 am, ASOR’s Board members will be in the Grand Ballroom to informally talk to you and hear your thoughts and ideas about all things ASOR-related. Grab your coffee or tea and come say hello.

Share Your Thoughts: Later that day at the Members’ Meeting (12:55-1:55 pm, Waldorf Room), I have set aside time for members of the Taskforce on the Review of the Code of Professional Conduct to answer questions from members. This Code, a guide for all Board and committee actions, serves as the foundation for how ASOR members contribute to ASOR’s mission and steers the actions on extremely complex and timely issues. It is also intended to be updated on a regular basis, which the Taskforce has been asked to consider. While I have initiated discussion at this level, I know that we will need time and lots more input from ASOR members before we are ready to bring a revised document to the Board. 

I am looking to you for help. Please read the Code of Professional Conduct and send us your thoughts in the anonymous survey that was sent via email today. I hope the Taskforce can get as many questions answered as possible during the meeting, but if not there, we can set up another venue to discuss the issues with ASOR members.

Here are a couple of other things that happened at ASOR over the summer:

Title IX Changes: As ASOR president, I signed a letter to the US Department of Education suggesting that the proposed changes eliminating peer review in the Title IX grant application reviews were not needed nor helpful. Both of ASOR’s overseas centers apply and receive Title IX funding. If you would like to see the letter, please let me know. I decided that writing this letter was not a contradiction of ASOR’s policy of not making political statements, as ASOR could offer expertise on this particular issue.

“Orphaned” Objects: I also signed a letter in collaboration with the Archaeological Institute of America suggesting that the proposed changes to policies on the publication of “orphaned” objects (those with no known history after 1970) was contrary to ASOR policies, which were put in place to help combat illegal excavations. This proposal was made within UNIDROIT (an international independent organization that helps to create uniform legal standards for global commerce). If you are interested in the joint letter, I can also share that with you.

ASOR Website: If you have had a chance to look at the website, please thank Jared, Moni, Marta and the committee that has been cleaning up the pages to make them more useful. The committee is also working with other ASOR committees to expand the usefulness of the site and you will see more changes in the coming months.

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in Chicago,

Jane DeRose Evans, ASOR President

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