Madeleine McLeester.  I study the rapid transformation of the Calumet Region from 1500-1850.  The Calumet Region is the 45 mile stretch of land along the southern rim of Lake Michigan.  It is known for both its unique biodiversity and ecological degradation.  My work aims to understand how semi-sedentary groups in the region helped to shape this ecology.  In particular, I am researching how the processes of agriculture, foraging, and hunting impact the various environments where they were practiced.  My research uses methods such as pollen, macrobotanical, and stable isotopic analyses.  I'm also interested in the politics of nature in the past and present -- in particular, the dominance of a Europeanized ecology both in nature and in discourse.  Through my research on the impact of semi-sedentary groups, I hope to inform the restoration and management of the Calumet Region's natural areas on methods to help achieve restoration targets.

 Melissa Rosenzweig. I study the intersections of agriculture and empire at a Late Assyrian (first millennium BCE) site in southeastern Anatolia called Ziyaret Tepe.  I  use archaeobotanical analysis to put into context the social changes rendered by, and through, agriculture before and during imperial occupation of the site.  Theoretical underpinnings for this study come from political ecology and landscape/environmental archaeology.

Byron Hamman. I study prehispanic Mesoamerica, Catholicism and Islam in late medieval Europe, and the intersection of these traditions in the early modern transatlantic world.  My work in historical ethnography draws on alphabetic documents as well as other kinds of material records: images, objects, landscapes, buildings, archaeological remains. For my doctoral project, I conducted over three years of archival research in both Mexico and Spain. The dissertation centers on two inquisitorial investigations which began in the 1540s. One is from Spain (Valencia), and the other from Mexico (Oaxaca). The first involves relations between Muslims and Catholics, and the second relations between Native Americans and Europeans. The different testimonies given (by religious specialists, nobles, former slaves) create a complex picture of social life in both Valencia and Oaxaca. Alliances and enmities, for example, commonly cross religious and ethnic divisions. For a broader perspective, I supplement the words of witnesses with documents from non-inquisitorial sources (Islamic legal rulings, prehispanic books, notary archives) as well as other types of material traces. Overall, the project involves microhistories of two specific places, and at the same time looks for parallels between the internal colonization of Muslims in Valencia and the external colonization of Native Americans in the New World.

Jennifer Rozo.  My dissertation research explores the long-term social, economic, and environmental implications of Puebloan agricultural land use practices and changes to those practices during the pre-Revolt Spanish colonial period in New Mexico (mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries).  Specifically, this project focuses on the introduction, spatialization, and development of a novel economy –  pastoralism – into a previously more exclusive agrarian economy.  My project employs survey, excavation, and pollen analysis data from an early Spanish colonial-period Pueblo village (known as LA 162, Paako, or San Pedro) and its surrounding field systems.  In particular, pollen analysis is used to examine the ecological impacts, both intentional and unintentional, of daily practices, in order to glean a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic, entangled interrelationships of (human) social communities, animal communities, plant communities, and the landscape, through a particular historically-situated case study. This, in turn, provides a more in-depth context for looking at the politics, economies, and aesthetics of the Spanish colonial world.

Debora Heard.  My research focuses on ancient Nubia which is in current-day northern Sudan and southern Egypt.  Focusing on the Napatan and Meroitic periods of the Kushite polity, my dissertation examines the structures, inscriptions, and iconography of temples dedicated to the gods Amun and Apedemak to analyze Kushite ideologies of power, political subjectivity, and womanhood.

Royal Omar Ghazal. My research interests are primarily in archaeology of the ancient Near East and South Asia, where I am concerned with systems of trade and exchange and how these factors contribute to changes in political economy and ecology in the Bronze Age. My dissertation seeks to contribute to a growing body of research in archaeology and related fields concerning intercultural interaction and systems of exchange in prehistoric/pre-market societies. This research explores how the introduction of foreign products and the development of local cottage industries – with emphasis on ceramics - contributed to the integration of coastal and interior communities in Early/Middle Bronze Age (3100-2000) Oman. The consolidation of these two communities, i.e. coastal fisherman and oasis interior agro-pastoralists, constituted the first successful cultural integration of these two subsistence regimes under a single "polity," which ancient Mesopotamian writers referred to as the "Kingdom of Magan" (northern Oman/UAE) .   http://chicago.academia.edu/royalghazal/About