Doctoral Student in Archaeology and the Ancient World (Ph.D. expected, May 2018)

Ian received his B.A. in Anthropology in 2005 and M.A. in the Social Sciences in 2009 from the University of Chicago. His M.A. thesis concentrated on the potential of Port St. Symeon Ware, a 13th century Levantine ceramic, to shed light on the changing social landscape of the late Crusader States. He has conducted fieldwork on the island of Gotland in Sweden (2004) at the Viking Age Settlement of Frojel as part of a University of Gotland project, at Abydos in Egypt (2006), working on the early 18th Dynasty temple of Queen Ahmose-Nefertary with a team from the University of Chicago, at Tell Hamoukar in Syria (2010), uncovering Akkadian and Ninevite V industrial levels in the lower town in a joint University of Toronto and University of Chicago excavation, in the Athenian Agora working on the Byzantine levels (2012), and most recently at Idalion and the Late Roman city of Kourion on Cyprus (2014). Ian has also worked in the private sector, conducting excavation and survey at Fatumafuti in American Samoa (2005), in central Illinois (2007), and in North Dakota (2011), where he worked with the Three Affiliated Tribes and the Sioux. His current research focuses on early medieval Cyprus, the transitions that occurred in material culture during the Arab-Byzantine Condominium and the Lusignan Dynasty, and the implications this may have for developing a more nuanced picture of the decision-making processes that shaped group identity. Ian's other interests include GIS, human osteology, postcolonial theory, and ceramic consumption.