Jessica received her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 with a double major in Classics and Archaeology and a minor in Anthropology. She has done fieldwork in Belize, Ukraine, and southern Italy at Metaponto and Croton with the Institute of Classical Archaeology (University of Texas). She currently conducts fieldwork as a member of the topography team in the excavations of Gabii in northern Latium, Italy. Her research interests at the site focus on urban development during the Orientalizing period as well as how digital techniques of three-dimensional recording, especially close-range photogrammetry, can create an entirely new documentary record. She is now working on her dissertation, tentatively titled "Reorienting Orientalization: Local Consumption and Value Construction in Central Italy between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Sea". This work explores the ways in which local Italian populations actively incorporated eastern materials through inland trade networks that cross the central Apennines between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic coasts. It focuses on investigating the entire funerary context instead of isolating 'exotica', entire cemeteries instead of solely elite tombs, and the interior Italian landscape rather than only the costal contact zone. Her broader research interests include culture contact and postcolonial theory, landscape archaeology, the application of GIS and remote sensing, theories of value and exchange, public archaeology and archaeological ethics.