Project Directors
Megan Kassabaum
Meg is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Weingarten Associate Curator for North America at the Penn Museum. She is an anthropological archaeologist with research interests in public and museum archaeology, archaeology of Philadelphia, pre-contact Native American archaeology of the Eastern United States, monument construction and communal ritual, foodways, and ceramic technology. She is committed to making the archaeology of these topics more accessible to the public.
Sarah Linn
Sarah is the Associate Director of the Academic Engagement Department at the Penn Museum with a background in Mediterranean archaeology. Her work centers on supporting student research in the Museum and making archaeological and anthropological research accessible to the public through engaging interpretive programs and exhibitions, such as Invisible Beauty: The Art of Archaeological Science and The Stories We Wear.
Latiaynna Tabb
Latiaynna is the principal at Tabb Management. Since 2010, Tabb Management has been Creating Things We Wished Existed independently and in partnership with mission-driven organizations and creative professionals, positioning them to deeply connect with their customers, clients, and communities through creative and community project management.
Douglas Smit
Doug is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 2017–2022, he was a Senior Fellow in Anthropology at UPenn. His research focuses on the archaeology of the recent past, how communities develop and interact with larger forces like capitalism, colonialism, and globalization.
Project Staff
Michaela Paulson (Project Conservator)
Michaela is a Project Conservator for the Penn Museum, working on the Ancient Egypt and Nubia Gallery renovation. She is an objects conservator with a focus on the care of archaeological and Indigenous cultural heritage materials and has worked as a site conservator in Italy as part of her conservation MA degree from the UCLA/Getty Program. Michaela has a deep commitment to fully collaborative conservation practices that take preservation beyond materiality and consultation with stakeholders towards a more human-centered approach.
Students
Autumn Melby
Autumn began her Ph.D. in the Department of Anthropology at Penn after completing her B.S. in Anthropology with a concentration in Archaeology and Public History from Appalachian State University in 2018. She is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Autumn's research explores the everyday lives of rural communities in moments of societal crisis or large-scale change. Her work is grounded in the desire to make archaeology accessible and engaging to underprivileged rural communities.
Chelsea Cohen
Chelsea began her Ph.D. in the Department of Anthropology at Penn after completing her BA in Anthropology at DePaul University and her MS in Maritime Archaeology and Conservation from Texas A&M University. As a historical archaeologist focusing on both land and sea, her research looks at the relationships between wooden shipbuilding, forest management, and labor groups in Chesapeake port cities. She also works with plant remains to help explore the lifeways of enslaved individuals in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Public anthropology has been a cornerstone of her education and practice since her first field school as part of a community archaeology project.
Robert Bryant
Born and raised in South Georgia and an alum of Georgia State University where he found a new passion in Archaeology through a B.A. and M.A. in the Anthropology department, Robert is actively working toward finishing his dissertation at in Anthropology Penn. Robert's work focuses on digital methodology, civic engagement, and how gamification can be applied to archaeological fieldwork and data to foster community archaeology. He works primarily on the Naxchivan Archaeological Project and the Bat Archaeological UNESCO Project in Oman.
Chris Lamack
Chris LaMack is a graduate student at Penn interested in local industry and producers during the 19th and early 20th century Industrial Revolutions. In addition to his participation in Heritage West, he is also involved with the Community-Oriented Digital Archaeology (CODA) project, which supports stakeholder-led efforts to document and preserve historic Black burial spaces in southeastern Pennsylvania by connecting them to equipment and archaeologists trained in digital and remote sensing techniques, such as database-building and ground-penetrating radar survey.
Faruq Adger
Faruq is a Philadelphia native who grew up in Germantown. He is an undergraduate studying Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology with a minor in Africana Studies at Penn. His goal is to apply his skills to inclusiveness within our society by disrupting embedded values of racism, sexism, homophobia, and colonization as a Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He began working with Heritage West through the Penn Museum Summer Internship program, conducting research and helping prepare the website text, including the statement regarding the Black Bottom on our homepage.
