Previous Students
Summer Moore, Ph.D.
Current Job: Project Director, International Archaeological Research Institute, Inc.
W&M Program: 2013-2020
Ph.D. Dissertation Title: Persistence On The Periphery: Change And Continuity In Post-Contact Hawaiian Households, Na Pali Coast, Kaua'i Island, Hawaiian Islands
Research Interests: Summer’s research interests include household archaeology, historical archaeology, and historical anthropology, with a specific interest in changes in the materiality of Hawaiian households during the early post-Contact period. Her recent research has focused on continuity and change at 19th-century Hawaiian house sites on the Nā Pali Coast of Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i, and how households in this remote area leveraged the unique resources available to them to maintain a strategic position on the margins of the market economy.
Alexis Ohman, Ph.D.
Current Job: Archaeologist at Naval Facilities System Command (NAVFAC), Atlantic
W&M Program: 2014-2021
Ph.D. Dissertation Title: Rations and Recreation: Comparative Zooarchaeological Analysis of Betty’s Hope Plantation and Shirley Heights Fort in Antigua, West Indies.
Research Interests: Alexis specializes in zooarchaeology, with a focus on the colonial Caribbean. For her dissertation research, she analyzed and compared faunal material from a plantation site and a fort site in Antigua to examine the significance of locally acquired fish and mollusks in foodways practices within and between those contexts. She assisted the Oceanic Archaeology Lab using her expertise in fish remains to identify materials from Hawaii, Mo'orea, Raiatea, and Maupiti.
Carol Oordt, M.A.
Current Job: Senior Project Archaeologist
WM Program: 2021-2022
M.A. Thesis Title: Turbo Shell Scrapers from the Society Islands: An Experimental Use-Wear and Microfossil Analysis
Research Interests: Carol’s research focuses on shell tool use and material culture in the Society Islands and more broadly throughout Polynesia. She is currently using archaeological science techniques including use-wear analysis, microfossil analysis, and experimental archaeology to investigate how expedient shell scrapers were used in people's daily lives. The goal of this project is to determine how Pacific Islanders used these expedient tools and highlight the importance of shell as a raw material for tool production in Society Islands as it is an understudied form of material culture.