Trowelblazers@BrownTrowelblazers@Brown is a group of early career researchers from historically underrepresented communities and their allies coming together in solidarity to reflect on experiences in the field and academia and engage in meaningful exchanges related to gender issues and accessibility. This group is striving towards a more intersectional understanding of what it means to be a woman in archaeology and the challenges one may or may not face in doing so.

Anyone who believes they might be able to contribute or benefit from being in a supportive and comfortable environment and participating in such discussions is welcome to join the group. To facilitate conversations there may on occasion be events limited to certain groups within the community. 

Come join us at our  meetings and mixers to support each other in our endeavors!

Trowelblazers@Brown also invites you visit Rhode Island Hall (60 George Street) to see the Hidden Figures exhibit, currently on display throughout the building. Hidden Figures aims to recognize the lives, scholarship, contributions, and stories of archaeologists from minority or historically marginalized communities to archaeological research, past and present. You can find images and biographies of archaeology’s hidden figures scattered throughout Rhode Island Hall, from the basement to the mezzanine (look carefully – some are more hidden than others!).

Read more about pioneering women in archaeology – and suggest additional names - on the Breaking Ground website. The website, started in 2003 by Martha S. Joukowsky and Barbara S. Lesko (Brown University), contains not only field archaeologists, but also those who have been deeply involved in the discipline of archaeology: philologists, epigraphers, writers, artists, museum curators, professors, and fund raisers.

Trowelblazers@Brown is inspired by -- though not formally affiliated with -- Trowelblazers, "a celebration of women archaeologists, palaeontologists and geologists who have been doing awesome work for far longer, and in far greater numbers, than most people realise."