Doctoral Student in Archaeology and the Ancient World (Ph.D. expected, May 2019)

Sam graduated with a B.A. in Classical Archaeology (High Honors) with a minor in Biological Anthropology in 2012, and a M.A. in Classical Archaeology IPCAA in 2013 at University of Michigan. Her thesis aimed to reconcile papyrological and archaeological data from a granary in Karanis, Egypt. Sam has worked in the field with the Gabii Project Latium, Italy (since 2010), the Notion Archaeological Survey, Turkey (2014-2015), and the S’Urachi Project, Sardinia (2014-present). Broadly, Sam studies local variability within inferred patterns of land-use, economic systems, and climatic change during the 1st millennium BCE in the Western Mediterranean. Her dissertation focuses on how industrial scale land-use associated with state-driven schema developed as economic and social processes in the mid-1st millennium BCE, how local environmental knowledge and diversified regional practices mitigated risk and environmental impact in the Mediterranean’s fragmented physical landscape, and proposes how broader patterns in climate change may have contributed to the stability of Roman intensification of vulnerable coastal and plain lands towards the end of the millennium. Sam is an affiliate of the Institute at Brown for Environment & Society and pursuing a M.Sc. in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences through the Open Graduate Program.