2026 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

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, 2028)

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. Fox currently serves as Partner and Senior Wealth Advisor at Curi Capital, serving families and individual clients primarily 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.

Jane DeRose Evans

President
(until December 31, 2028)

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 served as Chair of 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 also served as the Chair of the Trustee Nominations Committee. Evans became President in January 2026.

Sharon Herbert

Past President
(until December 31, 2026)

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. In 2025, she received the Richard J. Scheuer Medal for her service as ASOR President (2020-2025).

Andrew G. Vaughn

Executive Director
(until June 30, 2028)

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).

Kevin McGeough

Vice President
(until December 31, 2028)

Kevin McGeough is Professor of Archaeology and Co-Chair of the Department of Geography & Environment at the University of Lethbridge, where he holds a Board of Governor’s Research Chair in Archaeological Theory and Reception. Formerly the chair of ASOR’s Committee on Publications and Vice President of ASOR Canada, he was also the editor of ASOR’s Archaeological Report Series and the Annual of ASOR. Having excavated in Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Canada, McGeough is currently a co-director of the ULethbridge excavations at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump UNESCO World Heritage Site and the ULethbridge excavations at Busayra, Jordan. McGeough has written extensively on economic issues at the Late Bronze Age site of Ugarit, including two books, Exchange Relationships at Ugarit and Ugaritic Economic Tablets: Text, Translations, and Notes. More recently, McGeough has concentrated on the reception history of the Near East. He is the author of a three-volume series on the history of the field, The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth Century.  Representations of Antiquity in Film: From Griffith to Grindhouse is a study of the ancient world in cinema, and his upcoming Representations of Archaeology in Film: X, Never, Ever, Marks is the Spot analyzes the treatment of the profession of ancient studies in film. McGeough’s most recent book, Readers of the Lost Ark: Imagining the Ark of the Covenant from Ancient Times to the Present, is intended for non-specialist audiences.

McGeough became Vice President in 2026.

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.

Kathryn Grossman

(until December 31, 2028)

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 and as chair of the Development 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.