2025 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Archived webpage for the 2025 Executive Committee. This page has been replaced.
The Executive Committee of the ASOR Board of Trustees acts on behalf of the Board to manage the business and affairs of ASOR between the regular Board meetings is composed of the Board Chair, Vice Chair(s) of the Board (if any), President, Past President, President Elect, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Chair of the Development Committee, and two (2) or three (3) other Trustees.
Sheldon Fox
Chair of the Board
(until December 31, 2025)
Sheldon Fox graduated from Duke University in 1981 with an undergraduate degree in Management Science/Accounting. While at Duke, he worked with Carol and Eric Meyers at Nabratein.
Fox joined KPMG (formerly Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co.) in Raleigh in early 1982 and was admitted as a tax partner in 1993. During his 16 + year career at KPMG he served publicly-traded financial services corporations, privately-owned businesses in several industries, and high net worth individuals.
From 1998 until 2003, Fox was chief financial officer of CCB Financial in Durham and its successor by merger, NCF Financial in Memphis. He and his family returned to Raleigh in 2004.
In 2004, Fox joined KDI Capital Partners (formerly Maynard Capital Partners) and became a member of the firm in 2007. He served in varying roles, including portfolio manager, Chief Operating Officer, and financial planner through 2021.
Since January 2022, Fox has continued his financial planning focus with Curi Capital, a Raleigh, NC Registered Investment Adviser, that acquired the assets of KDI’s advisory business. In January 2024, Curi Capital merged and became Curi RMB Capital. Fox currently serves as Partner and Senior Wealth Manager at Curi RMB Capital, leading the team of wealth advisers in the Southeast.
Sheldon has been married to his wife, Debbie for over 40 years. They have two sons and five grandchildren. He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™.
Fox has been very active in the community in the Triangle and has served on several nonprofit boards.
Fox previously served as an ASOR trustee for nine years (2007-2015), and as treasurer for two terms (2007-2012). He took on the role of Board Chair in January 2023.
Sharon Herbert
President
(until December 31, 2025)
Sharon Herbert is the Charles K. Williams II Distinguished University Professor of Classical Archaeology Emerita and Research Associate at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan. Formerly, she served as the chair of the Department of Classical Studies and Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology at Michigan, where she has enjoyed a remarkable career as a field archaeologist, teacher, and academic administrator since she joined the Michigan faculty in 1973. She is also the former Curator of Greek and Hellenistic Collections and Director Emerita (1997-2013) of the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum.
Herbert’s research specialties include Hellenistic Egypt and the Near East and ancient ceramics. She is best known for her contributions to the archaeology of Israel, as director of the Tel Anafa excavations from 1978 to 1981 and as co-director of the Tel Kedesh excavations from 1997 to 2012. She has also conducted archaeological fieldwork in Greece, Italy, and Egypt.
Before assuming her position as ASOR’s President on January 1, 2020, Herbert served as ASOR Vice President from 2013-2019. Herbert also served as the President of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR) from 2013-2018. In November 2017, Herbert received ASOR’s W. F. Albright Service Award, in recognition of her work on behalf of the Albright.
Jane DeRose Evans
President Elect
(until December 31, 2025)
Jane DeRose Evans is Professor and Chair of Art History at Temple University. She specializes in the archaeology of the Roman provinces and especially in ancient numismatics. She is a Fellow of the American Numismatic Society and a member of the Royal Numismatic Society. After excavating for many years in France, she is now project numismatist for the Harvard/Cornell Excavations in Sardis and the George Washington University excavations at Bir Madhkur (Jordan). Recently, she brought to publication The Mithraeum at Caesarea Maritima (ASOR Press) and is completing the final publication on the U-Shaped Building at Caesarea.
Evans has been a member of ASOR for many years, and from 2010-2015, she served on the Ad Hoc Ethics Working Group that authored the Policy on Professional Conduct adopted by the ASOR Board in April 2015. She currently serves on the Cultural Heritage Committee and has testified on behalf of the Memoranda of Understanding that allow intercepting illegally obtained antiquities from Cyprus and Egypt at the US border.
Evans served on the ASOR Board from 2011-2013 and then rejoined the Board again in January 2016. She has served as the Chair of the Trustee Nominations Committee and the Chair of the Cultural Heritage Committee.
Andrew G. Vaughn
Executive Director
(until June 30, 2025)
Andrew G. (Andy) Vaughn became ASOR’s Interim Executive Director on January 1, 2007, and he was appointed Executive Director on July 1, 2007. Prior to this appointment, Vaughn taught at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. There, from 1997–2007, he was Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible. He also served as Chair of Department of Religion. His teaching and research interests include cultural heritage, history, archaeology, Semitic languages, and Israelite religion. He is a past recipient of the Mitchell Dahood Prize for Biblical Scholarship, and he was a Fulbright Fellow at Tel Aviv University from 1993–94.
Prior to taking up his position as Executive Director of ASOR, Vaughn served on ASOR’s Publications Committee from 2001–2006, and he was elected as Chair of the Publications Committee in 2005. As Chair, he served on the ASOR Board and Executive Committee from 2005–2006, and he was on the ASOR Management Committee from 2006–2007. He was editor of the joint ASOR/SBL Archaeology and Biblical Studies Book Series from 2001–2007. He has also served as Vice President of the Upper Midwest Region of the Society of Biblical Literature (2006-2007) and on the SBL Development Committee (2004–2007).
Charles Ellwood Jones
Vice President
(until December 31, 2025)
Charles Ellwood (Chuck) Jones is the Tombros Librarian for Classics and Humanities at The Pennsylvania State University Library, a position he has held since August 2013. At Penn State, he also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies. Previously, Jones served as the Head of the Library for the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), in New York, where he also held a position as Senior Fellow and was a faculty member of the Institute’s 2012-13 Linked Ancient World Institute. Prior to his time at ISAW, Jones was the Head Librarian for the Blegen Library at the American School of Classical Studies, in Athens, and was the Research Archivist-Bibliographer for the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
Jones is particularly known for developing online resources for ancient Near Eastern scholars, including AWOL (the Ancient World Online). In 2008, he won the ASOR Open Archaeology Award, for the Abzu website, and in 2015-2016, he won an award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology from The Archaeological Institute of America.
Within ASOR, Jones has served as a session chair for programs on cyberinfrastructure and digital scholarship and as a member and then, from 2012-2018, as chair of the Publications Committee. In November 2018, Jones received ASOR’s Membership Service Award in recognition of his work as Publications Chair.
Sarah Jarmer Scott
Secretary
(until December 31, 2027)
Sarah J. Scott (Ph. D. History of Art, University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Art History and Director of the Arts Administration Program at Wagner College. A small “practical Liberal Arts” institution, Wagner provides a Liberal Arts undergraduate education coupled with majors and professional programs that prepares students for global citizenship. Sarah teaches in and develops programming for various interdisciplinary curricula and student support initiatives. She has also served as the President for the Archaeology Society of Staten Island, Chair of Wagner’s Faculty Personnel Committee, and is the incumbent Chair of the Academic Policy Committee. Sarah’s passion for her field, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a curiosity about humans’ connections to objects are what fuel her dedication to teaching and higher education. She has enjoyed working with Wagner students through a challenging academic curriculum and guiding them in the application of their academics to real-world experience and problem solving.
Trained not only as an Art Historian but also as an Archaeologist, Sarah’s research bridges these disciplines as she investigates the relationships between art, writing, and material experience in pre- and early literate Mesopotamia and the Aegean. Her scholarship has focused on both small objects such as cylinder seals (Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World: Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2018), as well as monumental architecture and narrative (“Imagining Architectural Space: Methodological Approaches for Assyrian Palaces,” in How Do We Want the Past to Be? On Methods and Instruments of Visualizing the Ancient Reality, Gorgias Press, 2016). Her current publication project is a co-edited volume, The Routledge Companion to Seals and Seal Studies in Antiquity. She has also worked on projects for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Anderson Galleries (SUNY Buffalo).
Scott joined the ASOR Board in January 2025.
Emily Miller Bonney
Treasurer
(until December 31, 2026)
Emily Miller Bonney is a professor of Liberal Studies at California State University Fullerton, where she currently serves as Dean of the Pollak University Library. She has also served as Interim Assistant Vice President for Academic Human Resources. Her research focuses on Bronze Age Crete and specifically on the application of extended mind and material agency theories to the relationship between the archaeological record and social/political/economic change. In addition, she examines the ways in which the specific disciplinary frameworks affect the conclusions scholars reach. Her recent work re-examines the mortuary evidence for social organization transitions in the Early Bronze Age on Crete, particularly the circular stone tombs, and for cross-crafting in pottery and other media.
Bonney began attending ASOR meetings in 1999, after fifteen years in the world of law school and legal practice. Since 2016, she has served as the session chair of “Career Options for ASOR Members: The Academy and Beyond.” She served as Chair of the ad hoc committee charged with developing a Code of Conduct for the ASOR Annual Meeting and is currently serves as a Chair of the Board’s Finance Committee. She received the ASOR Membership Service Award in November 2020.
Bonney joined the ASOR Board in January 2019.
Lynn Swartz Dodd
(until December 31, 2027)
Lynn Swartz Dodd is Associate Professor of the Practice of Religion at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. There, she has served as the Director of the Interdisciplinary Archaeology Undergraduate Major and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Religion. She was also designated a USC Dornsife Distinguished Faculty Fellow.
Dodd’s research centers on archaeology and politics and ancient innovation and social change, particularly the ways that beliefs about the world figure in social change. As Curator of USC’s Archaeology Research Center, she is also engaged in technical material studies, excavation publication projects, and research involving the use of lasers and new imaging techniques in archaeological research and conservation. She is a staff member of the Amuq Valley Research Project Survey (Turkey), the Kenan Tepe Excavations (Tigris River, Turkey), and the Tell al-Judaidah Publication Project (Turkey), as well as the Native American Sacred Landscapes Project (California). Dodd is in addition the co-organizer of the Israeli Palestinian Archaeology Working Group.
Dodd has served ASOR in many capacities: for example, as a member of the Publications Committee and of the Committee on Archaeological Research and Policy (and as Chair of that committee’s Fellowships Subcommittee). She was the Chair of the Ad Hoc Ethics Working Group that authored the Policy on Professional Conduct adopted by the ASOR Board in April 2015. She served as ASOR Secretary from 2013-2018 and currently serves as a member of the Board’s Finance Committee and as Chair of the Board’s Development Committee.
In November 2015, Dodd received the ASOR Membership Service Award, and in November 2018, she received the Charles U. Harris Service Award, which is given in recognition of long term and/or special service as an ASOR officer or Trustee.
Kathryn Grossman
(until December 31, 2025)
Kathryn Grossman is Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University. She is an archaeologist with expertise in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age cultures of Cyprus and Mesopotamia and a methodological specialty in zooarchaeology. She is Director of the ASOR-affiliated Makounta-Voules Archaeological Project, as well as zooarchaeologist for the Kani Shaie Archaeological Project (Iraqi Kurdistan), the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition (Egypt), the Petra North Ridge Project (Jordan), and the Temple of the Winged Lions Cultural Resource Management Project (Jordan). She is currently co-editing, with Jesse Casana and Eric Jensen, the final report on the excavations at Tell Qarqur, Syria.
Grossman has been a member of ASOR’s Committee on Archaeological Research and Policy and served as Chair of the Fellowship Committee (2016-2021). She received ASOR’s Membership Service Award in 2021 in recognition of her work on the Fellowship Committee.
Eric M. Meyers
(until December 31, 2027)
Eric Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Emeritus Professor in Judaic Studies and Archaeology in the Department of Religious Studies of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Duke University. He served as Director of the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke from 1979-1985 and as Associate Director in 2000-2001. He became Director again in academic year 2001-2002, a position he held until 2007.
Meyers’s research interests include the Bible, Jewish history, and archaeology. Meyers has directed digs in Israel for forty years, including the Meiron Excavation Project, whose work included excavations of the nearby synagogues of Gush Ḥalav and Nabatrein, and the Sepphoris Regional Project.
Within ASOR, Meyers held the position of First Vice-President for Publications from 1982-1990, and from 1982-1992 he served as the editor of Biblical Archaeologist (BA). He served as well the associate editor of the Bulletin of ASOR (BASOR) from 1976-1993. Most notably, Meyers served as ASOR’s President from January 1, 1990, through July 1, 1996, and then again from May 2006 through December 2008.
In 2009, Meyers became Project Director of a major two-and-a-half year grant for archiving the history of American archaeology in the Middle East through ASOR. In addition, from 1975-1976, he served as Director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) in Jerusalem. Today, he is an Honorary Trustee of the Albright. He also currently serves as a member of the ASOR Board’s Development Committee.
In 1997, Meyers received ASOR’s G. Ernest Wright Publication Award, which is given to the editor/author of the most substantial volume(s) dealing with archaeological material, excavation reports, and material culture from the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. A decade later, in November 2007, he received ASOR’s most prestigious award, the Richard J. Scheuer Medal, for lifetime achievement and professional service. The Eric and Carol Meyers Excavation Fellowships, established in 2014, also honor his long-standing service to ASOR.
Kiersten Neumann
(until December 31, 2026)
Kiersten Neumann specializes in the art and archaeology of West Asia, with a focus on Assyrian and Achaemenid material culture. She is Curator of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum (ISAC Museum [formerly Oriental Institute Museum]), Research Associate at ISAC, and Lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. In addition to co-editing The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East (2022), she has published numerous articles on sensory experience, ritualized practice, and visual culture, as well as on museum practice, collecting histories, and provenance research. At the ISAC Museum, she has curated such exhibitions as “Joseph Lindon Smith: The Persepolis Paintings” (2022), “Making Sense of Marbles: Roman Sculpture at the OI” (2022–2023), and “Artifacts Also Die” (2023), in addition to the museum’s permanent galleries as part of a complete renovation (2019). She has conducted fieldwork in Turkey (Tell Tayinat) and Greece (Athenian Agora), and collaborates on international museum, art, and cultural heritage projects and exhibitions. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, she received her B.A. and M.A. from the University of British Columbia and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, during which time she also worked at the Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology in Berkeley, ultimately as Associate Curator and Interim Director. Neumann serves as co-chair of ASOR’s Program Committee.
Neumann joined the ASOR Board in January 2024 and the Executive Committee in January 2025.
Jason Ur
(until December 31, 2026)
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, has now been accepted as a Standing Session.
Ur joined the ASOR Board in January 2021 and the Executive Committee in January 2025.
Archaeologists are moving away from the colonial past of the discipline and are increasingly finding ways of engaging and collaborating with the communities where we work. Since 2016, the University of Michigan archaeological project in northern Sudan that Dr. Emberling co-directs has been conducting research at important sites of the ancient empire of Kush, first at the royal pyramid cemetery of Kushite kings and queens at El-Kurru (ca. 850-350 BCE) and more recently at the major urban center at Jebel Barkal (ancient Napata). Their work has come to be highly collaborative and engages extensively with local communities.
This talk is not primarily about those excavations. Rather, it will discuss what has happened in Sudan since the outbreak of war in the country in April 2023 with a particular focus on heritage. It will provide an overview of the conflict, discuss real (and imagined) threats to museums, sites, and monuments, and discuss the wide range of responses by the Sudanese government, Sudanese scholars, international institutions, and foreign-based archaeologists. It will also focus on the work done with communities and colleagues at El-Kurru and Jebel Barkal.
Collaborative relationships developed by the teams and others working in Sudan have made it possible in some cases to continue to work together on on-site management and protection and community engagement, even at a time of unimaginable struggle and hardship in the country. This work has raised the question of whether it is unethical to be focusing on heritage when people are suffering. However, Dr. Emberling and his team have found that through collaborative work (and flexible and generous funding), they are able to provide direct support to a large number of people to continue their archaeological work. This provides meaning and purpose for their archaeological colleagues, while their community engagement activities offer opportunities for local residents and refugees to relax, connect, and even have some fun in the midst of a dire situation. It turns out that heritage is always about people.
Geoff Emberling is an archaeologist and museum curator at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan whose work has focused on the ancient Middle East and Northeast Africa. He is also a longtime ASOR member. He directed excavations at Tell Brak in northeastern Syria until 2004 and then took a position as Museum Director and Chief Curator at what is now the Institute for the Study of Ancient Civilizations (ISAC) at the University of Chicago. While there, he supervised an exhibit on the looting of museums and sites in Iraq around the 2003 US-led invasion.