BOARD OF TRUSTEES (2023)

Archived webpage for the 2023 Board of Trustees; This page has been replaced.

The Board of Trustees is ASOR’s governing body, responsible for setting ASOR policy. The Board meets twice a year (in the spring and on the Sunday following the Annual Meeting).

The officers, all of whom are elected by the ASOR Board, include a Board Chair, President, Past President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and such other officers as may be elected pursuant to the Bylaws, such as a Vice Chair, Assistant Secretary, or Assistant Treasurer. In addition, the Board is comprised of six Membership-Elected Trustees, six Institutionally-Elected Trustees, twelve Board-Elected Trustees, and two Overseas Institute Trustees, as well as individuals designated by the Board as Honorary and Life Trustees.

OFFICERS & TRUSTEE CLASSES

Sheldon Fox

Chair of the Board
(until December 31, 2025)

Sheldon Fox graduated from Duke University in 1981 with an undergraduate degree in Management Science/Accounting. While at Duke, he worked with Carol and Eric Meyers at Nabratein.

Fox joined Peat, Marwick & Mitchell (now KPMG) in Raleigh in early 1982 and was admitted as a tax partner in 1993. During his 16 + year career at KPMG he served publicly-traded financial services corporations, privately-owned businesses in several industries and high net worth individuals.

In 1998, Fox joined CCB in Durham as chief financial officer and following CCB’s merger in 2000 with National Commerce Financial, he moved to Memphis, TN to become CFO of National Commerce (approximately $5 billion market cap). Sheldon left National Commerce in 2003, and he and his family returned to Raleigh in 2004.

In 2004, Fox joined Maynard Capital Partners (now KDI Capital Partners) and became a member of the firm in 2007. He served as the investment management firm’s Chief Operating Officer, responsible for client relations and administration until March 31, 2019. On the investment side, he managed KDI’s Value Preservation options strategy from its inception in 2009 through its termination in 2019 and was co-manager of the firm’s Core Equities strategy until March 31, 2019. From April 1, 2019 until December 31, 2021, Fox led KDI’s efforts to develop a financial planning practice focused on multi-generational high net worth families.

Since January 2022, Fox has continued his financial planning focus as Senior Director, Family Office Services, with Curi Capital, a Raleigh, NC Registered Investment Adviser, that acquired the assets of KDI’s advisory business.

Sheldon is 61, and has been married to his wife, Debbie for 38 years. They have two sons and two grandsons. He continues to hold an active CPA license, and is also a candidate for CFP® certification.

Fox has been very active in the community in the Triangle and has served on several nonprofit boards. He currently serves on the board and is chair of the Investment Committee at Triangle Community Foundation. He has previously chaired the boards of United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County and WakeMed Foundation.

Fox previously served as an ASOR trustee for nine years (2007-2015), and as treasurer for two terms (2007-2012). He took on the role of Board Chair in January 2023.

Sharon Herbert

President
(until December 31, 2025)

Sharon Herbert is the Charles K. Williams II Distinguished University Professor of Classical Archaeology Emerita and Research Associate at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan. Formerly, she served as the chair of the Department of Classical Studies and Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology at Michigan, where she has enjoyed a remarkable career as a field archaeologist, teacher, and academic administrator since she joined the Michigan faculty in 1973. She is also the former Curator of Greek and Hellenistic Collections and Director Emerita (1997-2013) of the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum.

Herbert’s research specialties include Hellenistic Egypt and the Near East and ancient ceramics. She is best known for her contributions to the archaeology of Israel, as director of the Tel Anafa excavations from 1978 to 1981 and as co-director of the Tel Kedesh excavations from 1997 to 2012. She has also conducted archaeological fieldwork in Greece, Italy, and Egypt.

Before assuming her position as ASOR’s President on January 1, 2020, Herbert served as ASOR Vice President from 2013-2019. Herbert also served as the President of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR) from 2013-2018. In November 2017, Herbert received ASOR’s W. F. Albright Service Award, in recognition of her work on behalf of the Albright.

Susan Ackerman

Past President
(until December 31, 2025)

Susan Ackerman is the Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, where she has been on the faculty since 1990. At Dartmouth, she served as the Chair of the Religion Department from 2004-2012 and as the Chair of the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies  from 2002-2004 and 2015-2019. Her research specialties include the religion of ancient Israel, women and gender in ancient Israel, myth and ritual studies in ancient Israel, and the Hebrew Bible.

Ackerman served as ASOR President from 2014-2019. Prior to that, Ackerman served as a member of the ASOR Board for seven years (2007-2013), during which time she was a member of the ASOR Capital Campaign Cabinet, the Task Force on the ASOR Strategic Plan for 2011-2015, and the Finance Committee. She has also served as President of the New England and Eastern Canada Region of the Society of Biblical Literature (2013-2014), as President of the Colloquium for Biblical Research (2008-2010), and as a member and then Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR), from 2008-2013.

In November 2019, Ackerman received ASOR’s most prestigious award, the Richard J. Scheuer Medal, for lifetime achievement and professional service.

Andrew G. Vaughn

Executive Director
(until June 30, 2025)

Andrew G. (Andy) Vaughn became ASOR’s Interim Executive Director on January 1, 2007, and he was appointed Executive Director on July 1, 2007. Prior to this appointment, Vaughn taught at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. There, from 1997–2007, he was Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible. He also served as Chair of Department of Religion. His teaching and research interests include cultural heritage, history, archaeology, Semitic languages, and Israelite religion.  He is a past recipient of the Mitchell Dahood Prize for Biblical Scholarship, and he was a Fulbright Fellow at Tel Aviv University from 1993–94.

Prior to taking up his position as Executive Director of ASOR, Vaughn served on ASOR’s Publications Committee from 2001–2006, and he was elected as Chair of the Publications Committee in 2005. As Chair, he served on the ASOR Board and Executive Committee from 2005–2006, and he was on the ASOR Management Committee from 2006–2007. He was editor of the joint ASOR/SBL Archaeology and Biblical Studies Book Series from 2001–2007. He has also served as Vice President of the Upper Midwest Region of the Society of Biblical Literature (2006-2007) and on the SBL Development Committee (2004–2007).

Charles Ellwood Jones

Vice President
(until December 31, 2025)

Charles Ellwood (Chuck) Jones is the Tombros Librarian for Classics and Humanities at The Pennsylvania State University Library, a position he has held since August 2013. At Penn State, he also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies. Previously, Jones served as the Head of the Library for the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), in New York, where he also held a position as Senior Fellow and was a faculty member of the Institute’s 2012-13 Linked Ancient World Institute. Prior to his time at ISAW, Jones was the Head Librarian for the Blegen Library at the American School of Classical Studies, in Athens, and was the Research Archivist-Bibliographer for the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

Jones is particularly known for developing online resources for ancient Near Eastern scholars, including AWOL (the Ancient World Online). In 2008, he won the ASOR Open Archaeology Award, for the Abzu website, and in 2015-2016, he won an award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology from The Archaeological Institute of America.

Within ASOR, Jones has served as a session chair for programs on cyberinfrastructure and digital scholarship and as a member and then, from 2012-2018, as chair of the Publications Committee. In November 2018, Jones received ASOR’s Membership Service Award in recognition of his work as Publications Chair.

Ann-Marie Knoblauch

Secretary
(until December 31, 2024)

Ann-Marie Knoblauch is Associate Professor of Art History and Associate Director of the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech. Her research interests bridge east and west, especially Cyprus and Greece during the archaic and classical periods. She is especially concerned with articulating the voices of underrepresented groups in the ancient Mediterranean world — non-Athenian and non-male — through the material culture left behind. This approach to the ancient world manifests itself in two main research endeavors, investigations into the visual iconography of Athenian women and active fieldwork on the island of Cyprus. Knoblauch has been involved in the excavations of Idalion, Cyprus, since 1998, and on Cyprus, she has also excavated at Yeronisos Island. She has also excavated in Israel and Greece.

Knoblauch has chaired several ASOR sessions on Cyprus at the ASOR Annual Meeting, and she also served as guest co-editor for a special double issue of Near Eastern Archaeology (NEA 71/1-2) whose focus was “Ancient Cyprus: American Research.” In addition, she served as a member of the Near Eastern Archaeology editorial board from 2008 through 2016.

Knoblauch joined the ASOR Board in January 2013. While on the Board, she has been a member of the Executive Committee, the Finance Committee, the Officers Nominations Committee, and the Task Force for Implementing the ASOR 2011-2015 Strategic Plan, and she served as the chair of the Trustee Nominations Committee. She has also been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) since 2002.

Knoblauch has been ASOR Secretary since January 1, 2019. She received the ASOR Membership Service Award in recognition of her work as ASOR Secretary in 2022.

Emily Miller Bonney

Treasurer
(until December 31, 2023)

Emily Miller Bonney is a professor of Liberal Studies at California State University Fullerton, where she currently serves as Dean of the Pollak University Library. She has also served as Interim Assistant Vice President for Academic Human Resources. Her research focuses on Bronze Age Crete and specifically on the application of extended mind and material agency theories to the relationship between the archaeological record and social/political/economic change. In addition, she examines the ways in which the specific disciplinary frameworks affect the conclusions scholars reach. Her recent work re-examines the mortuary evidence for social organization transitions in the Early Bronze Age on Crete, particularly the circular stone tombs, and for cross-crafting in pottery and other media.

Bonney began attending ASOR meetings in 1999, after fifteen years in the world of law school and legal practice. Since 2016, she has served as the session chair of “Career Options for ASOR Members: The Academy and Beyond.” She currently serves as a member of the Board’s Finance Committee and she is Chair of the ad hoc committee charged with developing a Code of Conduct for the ASOR Annual Meeting. She received the ASOR Membership Service Award in November 2020.

Bonney joined the ASOR Board in January 2019.

LIFE TRUSTEES

Eric M. Meyers

Life Trustee

Eric Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Emeritus Professor in Judaic Studies and Archaeology in the Department of Religious Studies of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Duke University. He served as Director of the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke from 1979-1985 and as Associate Director in 2000-2001. He became Director again in academic year 2001-2002, a position he held until 2007.

Meyers’s research interests include the Bible, Jewish history, and archaeology. Meyers has directed digs in Israel for forty years, including the Meiron Excavation Project, whose work included excavations of the nearby synagogues of Gush Ḥalav and Nabatrein, and the Sepphoris Regional Project.

Within ASOR, Meyers held the position of First Vice-President for Publications from 1982-1990, and from 1982-1992 he served as the editor of Biblical Archaeologist (BA). He served as well the associate editor of the Bulletin of ASOR (BASOR) from 1976-1993. Most notably, Meyers served as ASOR’s President from January 1, 1990, through July 1, 1996, and then again from May 2006 through December 2008.

In 2009, Meyers became Project Director of a major two-and-a-half year grant for archiving the history of American archaeology in the Middle East through ASOR. In addition, from 1975-1976, he served as Director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) in Jerusalem. Today, he is an Honorary Trustee of the Albright. He also currently serves as a member of the ASOR Board’s Development Committee.

In 1997, Meyers received ASOR’s G. Ernest Wright Publication Award, which is given to the editor/author of the most substantial volume(s) dealing with archaeological material, excavation reports, and material culture from the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. A decade later, in November 2007, he received ASOR’s most prestigious award, the Richard J. Scheuer Medal, for lifetime achievement and professional service. The Eric and Carol Meyers Excavation Fellowships, established in 2014, also honor his long-standing service to ASOR.

Joe D. Seger

Life Trustee

Joe D. Seger is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures and Director Emeritus of the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University, whose faculty he joined in 1982. His research interests include Near Eastern archaeology and field methods, Old Testament history and literature, ancient Semitic languages, and ancient Near Eastern religions and cultures. He is an expert in ceramic analysis and excavation techniques.

Seger’s career as a field archaeologist began with the Joint Expedition to Tell Balatah, biblical Shechem, in 1962. He returned for the 1964 season and became Field Director in 1969. Since 1975 he has been the Project Director of the Lahav Research Project excavations at Tell Halif in Israel.

Seger first joined the ASOR Board in 1986 and has served on the Board ever since. From 1996-2002, he served as the ASOR President. Seger also served as the President of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) from 1988-1994 and now he serves as an Honorary Trustee of the Albright. He also currently serves the ASOR Board as a member of the Officers Nominations Committee and the Development Committee.

In 2006, Seger received ASOR’s most prestigious award, the Richard J. Scheuer Medal, for lifetime achievement and professional service. The recently established Joe D. Seger Excavation Fund also honors his long-standing service to ASOR.

TRUSTEE CLASS OF 2023

(serving through December 31, 2023)

Theodore Burgh

Membership-Elected Trustee

Theodore (Teddy) Burgh is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His research specialties include the archaeology of ancient Israel and the Near East, the Hebrew Bible, archaeomusicology (the study of ancient music culture), the reconstruction of Syro-Palestinian and Near Eastern music culture and cataloging musical artifacts, utilization analysis of Syro-Palestinian sacred and secular space, and ethnomusicology. Burgh is himself an accomplished musician (he plays flute, clarinet, and saxophone), and in addition to his university career, he enjoys composing and performing. He is a member of the FROG Project and Lee Venters and Vermillion Sands (Wilmington, NC).

Burgh has been an ASOR member since 1996, presenting numerous papers at the ASOR Annual Meeting as well as chairing sessions. He has been a member of the Membership and Outreach Committee since the beginnings of his involvement with ASOR, and he has especially championed that committee’s Friends of ASOR initiative. In January 2020, he assumed the position as Chair of the Membership and Outreach Committee. He also serves as a member of the Board’s Trustee Nominations Committee.

Burgh joined the ASOR Board in January 2015.

Peggy Duly

Board-Elected Trustee

Peggy Duly, a native Californian, is retired from her position as medical technologist and research associate in the Clinical Chemistry Lab at the University of California, San Diego. Previously, she worked at the University of Colorado Medical Center. As far back as her undergraduate days, however, Duly identified her avocation as anthropology with an emphasis on archaeology. She has fostered her anthropological interests through trips to Canada, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Panama, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Eire, France, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel.

Duly joined the ASOR Board in January 2015.

Melissa Bailey Kutner

Membership-Elected Trustee

Melissa Bailey Kutner is Assistant Professor in the department of Ancient Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research focuses on the late Byzantine economy of Jordan and on the Roman economy more broadly, including issues of standardization and cognitive approaches to value. She has excavated at a variety of sites in Jordan since 2008, and since 2017 has acted as a co-director of the Dhiban Excavation and Development Project. This project investigates long-term occupation at the site of Dhiban in west-central Jordan: how such occupation has waxed and waned in relation to broader regional and political developments and how inhabitants of the site reused and repurposed architecture and features of the landscape. Dr. Kutner focuses especially on the late Byzantine prosperity of the site and its early Islamic transition. She also served as chair of the Archaeology of the Byzantine Near East session at ASOR for six years.

Bailey Kutner joined the ASOR Board in January 2021.

Susan Laden

Board-Elected Trustee

Susan (Sue) Laden is the publisher of the Biblical Archaeology Society, which was founded in 1974. Laden joined the Biblical Archaeology Society almost immediately thereafter – in 1975. This non-profit, non-denominational Society’s goal is making available, in understandable language, the latest insights of professional archaeologists as they relate to the Bible. The Biblical Archaeology Society is known primarily for its magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review. The magazine’s core audience includes individuals who are fascinated by the Bible or by ancient history but who have almost no background in archaeology. The Biblical Archaeology Society also sponsors travel/study programs. Recently, Laden has been instrumental in launching the Biblical Archaeology Society’s web-based newsletter “Bible History Daily.”

Laden serves on ASOR’s Membership and Outreach Committee, where she has been especially involved in helping develop the Friends of ASOR outreach program.

Laden joined the ASOR Board in January 2015.

W. Mark Lanier

Board-Elected Trustee

Mark Lanier is a trial lawyer and founder of the Lanier Law Firm, which has offices in Houston, New York, and Los Angeles. He has won many awards for his work as an attorney, including, most recently, being recognized as “Houston’s Lawyer of the Year” in 2017 for Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs, as “Trial Lawyer of the Year” by The National Trial Lawyers and The Trial Lawyer magazine (2016), and as “Houston’s Lawyer of the Year” for Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions (2016). In 2015, he was awarded the American Association of Justice’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2012, he was awarded the Clarence Darrow award, which honors the famed attorney Clarence Darrow and is given to attorneys who have demonstrated conviction in their work and exceptional courage in the face of adversity.

Lanier is also enthusiastically involved in government and community activities outside the practice of law. He is the founder of the Lanier Theological Library, one of the nation’s largest private theological collections. He himself has published two books focused on integrating Christian faith into daily life: Christianity on Trial (2014) and Psalms For Living (2016).

Lanier joined the ASOR Board in January 2012. He has been a strong supporter of ASOR’s outreach efforts, and the Lanier Theological Library provides major funding to help publish ASOR’s e-newsletter that is dedicated to outreach, The ANE Today. Lanier also serves as a Trustee of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR).

Carol Meyers

Institutionally-Elected Trustee

Carol Meyers is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Her research interests include the archaeology of ancient Israel, archaeology and religion in ancient Israel, the Hebrew Bible, women and gender in ancient Israel, and anthropological and social-science approaches to the Hebrew Bible.

In 1971, Meyers began excavating at Meiron, and from 1978 to 2009, she served as Associate Director of the Meiron Excavation Project, which included excavations of the nearby synagogues of Gush Ḥalav and Nabatrein. She has also served, since 1984, as the Co-Director of the Joint Sepphoris Project and, since 1992, as the Co-Director of the Sepphoris Regional Project.    

Within ASOR, Meyers served on the Publications Committee from 1977–1992 and on the Committee on Archaeological Research and Policy for nine terms (twenty-seven years!) at various points between 1976 and 2010. She has also served on the Media Committee, the Officers Nominations Committee, the Advisory Committee of the ASOR Archiving Initiative, and on various ASOR Strategic Planning Committees: the Task Force on the ASOR Strategic Plan for 2011-2015, the Academic Master Planning Committee of 2004–2006, and the Strategic Initiatives Retreat of 2001. In addition, she was an associate editor of the Bulletin of ASOR (BASOR) from 1997–2005.

Meyers first joined the ASOR Board in 1976, serving as a Trustee from 1976-1978 and again from 2005 onward. Since 1994, she has also served as a Trustee of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR). Currently, she serves as a member of the Board’s Committee on the ASOR Policy on Professional Conduct and on the Officers Nominations Committee.

In November 2014, Meyers was awarded ASOR’s P. E. MacAllister Field Archaeology Award, and in November 2017, she received the Charles U. Harris Service Award, which is given in recognition of long term and/or special service as an ASOR officer or Trustee. The Eric and Carol Meyers Excavation Fellowships, established in 2014, also honor her long-standing service to ASOR.

Jason Ur

Institutionally-Elected Trustee

Jason Ur is Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specializes in early urbanism, landscape archaeology, and remote sensing, particularly the use of declassified US intelligence imagery. He was trained in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania (BA 1994) and in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago (PhD 2004). He has directed field surveys in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. He is the author of Urbanism and Cultural Landscapes in Northeastern Syria: The Tell Hamoukar Survey, 1999-2001 (2010). Since 2012, he has directed the CAP-affiliated Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey, an archaeological survey in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq. He is also preparing a history of Mesopotamian cities.

Ur joined ASOR as a student member in the late 1990s.  He held the ASOR Mesopotamian Fellowship in 2000-2001 and served on the Committee on Mesopotamian Civilization from 2009-2013. He was the plenary speaker at the 2014 ASOR annual meeting. He organized and chaired the Settlement and Society in the Ancient Near East session from 2008-2010. The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq session, which he founded and chaired from 2017-2019, has now been accepted as a Standing Session.

Ur joined the ASOR Board in January 2021.

TRUSTEE CLASS OF 2024

(serving through December 31, 2024)

Margaret Cohen

Membership-Elected Trustee

Margaret Cohen’s academic training is in Hebrew Bible, and her archaeological training comes from more than twenty years of excavations in Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Cohen taught in both large research and small liberal arts settings and has a deep appreciation for and interest in the many forms of the student experience. Her current research focuses on foodways, how food power was wielded in the biblical world, and how some modern-day food movements are informed by ancient texts and practices. After nearly a decade living in Jerusalem at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, she now lives in Tucson and teaches in Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona.

Cohen joined the ASOR Board in January 2021.

Erin Darby

Institutionally-Elected Trustee

Erin Darby is an associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee and the UT Faculty Director of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. She is an expert in the Hebrew Bible, archaeology, and ancient Near Eastern history and literature. At the University of Tennessee, she is one of the founding members of the Partnership for the Academic Study of Early Judaism, the Knoxville ArabFest cultural festival, the UT Archaeology Day outreach event, and the Tennessee Initiative for Middle East Studies. She leads the Department of Religious Studies diversity action committee, coordinates religious diversity professional development opportunities on the UT campus, and is the outgoing chair of the Chancellor’s Council for Diversity and Inclusion. Darby is also the co-director of the ASOR-affiliated ‘Ayn Gharandal Archaeological Project in southern Jordan, where she is excavating a Nabataean-Islamic period site and leading the UT Dig Jordan study abroad program.

Darby has been an active ASOR member since 2008 and has served the organization in a variety of ways. She was the co-chair of the Junior Scholars Committee (now Early Career Scholars Committee) for seven years, from 2010-2016. More recently, she served on the ASOR Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of the Annual Meeting, and she has served as the session chair for the Archaeology of the Near East: Bronze and Iron Ages and as co-chair for a number of member-organized sessions. Darby also serves as Co-Chair of ASOR’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee.

In November 2017, Darby received the ASOR Membership Service Award in recognition of her work as the Junior Scholars Committee’s Co-Chair. She joined the ASOR Board in January 2020.

Lynn Swartz Dodd

Institutionally-Elected Trustee

Lynn Swartz Dodd is Associate Professor of the Practice of Religion at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. There, she has served as the Director of the Interdisciplinary Archaeology Undergraduate Major and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Religion. She was also designated a USC Dornsife Distinguished Faculty Fellow.

Dodd’s research centers on archaeology and politics and ancient innovation and social change, particularly the ways that beliefs about the world figure in social change. As Curator of USC’s Archaeology Research Center, she is also engaged in technical material studies, excavation publication projects, and research involving the use of lasers and new imaging techniques in archaeological research and conservation. She is a staff member of the Amuq Valley Research Project Survey (Turkey), the Kenan Tepe Excavations (Tigris River, Turkey), and the Tell al-Judaidah Publication Project (Turkey), as well as the Native American Sacred Landscapes Project (California). Dodd is in addition the co-organizer of the Israeli Palestinian Archaeology Working Group.

Dodd has served ASOR in many capacities: for example, as a member of the Publications Committee and of the Committee on Archaeological Research and Policy (and as Chair of that committee’s Fellowships Subcommittee). She was the Chair of the Ad Hoc Ethics Working Group that authored the Policy on Professional Conduct adopted by the ASOR Board in April 2015. She served as ASOR Secretary from 2013-2018 and currently serves as a member of the Board’s Finance Committee and as Chair of the Board’s Development Committee.

In November 2015, Dodd received the ASOR Membership Service Award, and in November 2018, she received the Charles U. Harris Service Award, which is given in recognition of long term and/or special service as an ASOR officer or Trustee.

Jane DeRose Evans

Membership-Elected Trustee

Jane DeRose Evans is Professor and Chair of Art History at Temple University. She specializes in the archaeology of the Roman provinces and especially in ancient numismatics. She is a Fellow of the American Numismatic Society and a member of the Royal Numismatic Society. After excavating for many years in France, she is now project numismatist for the Harvard/Cornell Excavations in Sardis and the George Washington University excavations at Bir Madhkur (Jordan). Recently, she brought to publication The Mithraeum at Caesarea Maritima (ASOR Press) and is completing the final publication on the U-Shaped Building at Caesarea.

Evans has been a member of ASOR for many years, and from 2010-2015, she served on the Ad Hoc Ethics Working Group that authored the Policy on Professional Conduct adopted by the ASOR Board in April 2015. She currently serves on the Cultural Heritage Committee and has testified on behalf of the Memoranda of Understanding that allow intercepting illegally obtained antiquities from Cyprus and Egypt at the US border.

Evans served on the ASOR Board from 2011-2013 and then rejoined the Board again in January 2016. She is currently serving as the Chair of the Trustee Nominations Committee and as the Chair of the Cultural Heritage Committee.

Peyton Randolph Helm

Board-Elected Trustee

Peyton Randolph (Randy) Helm was the eleventh president of Muhlenberg College, serving from July 1, 2003, through June 30, 2015. He also served as the interim chancellor of UMass Dartmouth, from January 2016 to June 2017. Previously, Helm served as Vice-President for College Relations and Professor of Classical Studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

Helm began his career in academic administration at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named coordinator of College House Programs in 1981. He then served as Associate Director of Development and then Director of Development for Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences. From 1981-1988 he was also an adjunct Assistant Professor of Ancient History and Urban Studies at Penn. In 1988, Helm was named Vice-President for Development and Alumni Relations at Colby College, where he was promoted to Vice-President for College Relations in 2001.

Helm earned his B.A. in Archaeology from Yale University and his Ph.D. in ancient history, specializing in ancient Greek and Near Eastern history and literature, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Helm joined the ASOR Board in January 2016. He is currently serving as the Chair of the Board’s Ad Hoc Committee on ASOR’s Name.

Ann V. Sahlman

Board-Elected Trustee

Ann V. Sahlman was chairman and founder of Sahlman-Williams Public Relations & Marketing. She specializes in senior executive counseling, strategic planning, public relations consulting, communications policy, issues management, public relations program development and implementation, management, and donation/fund-raising program development.

Sahlman’s career began at the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority (Tampa International Airport). She served as senior public information officer for Tampa General Hospital, assistant to the president of TECO Energy responsible for community relations, education and corporate contributions, and as the first staff director for the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. She has served on more than 17 boards and counsels such as Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, Florida Chamber of Commerce, United Cerebral Palsy Foundation, University of Tampa Board of Fellows, and Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center Leadership Gifts Campaign. Additionally, Sahlman was appointed by Tampa mayor, Pam Iorio, to a four-year term on the Public Art Committee for the City of Tampa.

Sahlman has won several awards, including Who’s Who in Leading American Executives, Who’s Who in Public Relations in the U.S. and Canada, Finalist in the J.C. Penney Golden Rule Award For Community Service, and the Florida Hospital Association Public Relations Award. She now serves as Strategic Communications Counsel for the David A. Straz Performing Arts Center, one of the largest centers and conservatories in the United States.

Sahlman joined the ASOR Board in April 2019.

Carolyn Midkiff Strange

Board-Elected Trustee

Carolyn Midkiff Strange is the granddaughter of T. O. and Lilly Midkiff, West Texas pioneer ranchers who settled and bought property in Texas at about the turn of the twentieth century. Tyson, their oldest son, and Naomi, his wife (Carolyn Strange’s father and mother), also bought property. They worked hard, doing whatever work was necessary in order to pay off their land while living through the Great Depression.

Carolyn Strange met her life partner, James F. Strange, when they were students at Rice University, and for 57 years, until Jim’s death in 2018, Carolyn and Jim were steadfast partners in Jim’s archaeological work. Carolyn Strange served as Registrar for several seasons at Khirbet Shema‘ and Meiron and subsequently had other roles in Jim Strange’s excavations at Sepphoris. The Stranges also raised four children and instilled in them their love for archaeology. Today their son James Riley Strange, their daughter Katherine Burke, and their son-in-law Aaron Burke are all professional archaeologists.

Carolyn Strange has been an ASOR member for more than 50 years. In 2014, Jim and Carolyn Strange jointly established ASOR’s Strange and Midkiff Familes Excavation Fellowships, designated to support the participation of ASOR members as volunteers or staff on excavation projects.

TRUSTEE CLASS of 2025

(serving through December 31, 2025)

Lisa Ackerman

Board-Elected Trustee

Lisa Ackerman is the Executive Director of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, a non-profit organization in New York City committed to fostering an appreciation of Italian-American heritage and achievement through a broad range of philanthropic and cultural activities. Previously, Ackerman served as the Interim Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice President, and Chief Operating Officer of the World Monuments Fund, an organization founded in 1965 that has assisted in the conservation and development of long-term stewardship strategies at more than 600 sites in 100 countries, and as Executive Vice President of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. At WMF, where she worked from 2007 to 2019, Ackerman developed multiple international collaborative projects in conservation. In addition to general supervision over approximately 60 projects in 40 countries, she is the senior project manager for activities in Cambodia, Iraq, Libya, Thailand, and Tunisia.

Ackerman serves on the boards of Historic House Trust of New York City and New York Preservation Archive Project. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Graduate Center for Planning at the Pratt Institute in New York City. She previously served on the boards of St. Ann Center for Restoration and the Arts, Partners for Sacred Places, and the Neighborhood Preservation Center. In 2007, she received the Landmarks Lion award from the New York City Historic District Council. In 2008, Ackerman was named the first recipient of the US/ICOMOS Ann Webster Smith Award for International Heritage Achievement.

Ackerman joined the ASOR Board in January 2018.

Alex Brooks

Board-Elected Trustee

Alex Brooks is a partner with Capstone Partners, a Mizuho Company. Prior to Capstone, Brooks was a Senior Vice President at Hourglass Capital Management, a growth equity manager, where he was a portfolio manager and director of marketing to institutional investors.

Previously, Brooks was a financial consultant at Montgomery Securities, Dain Rauscher, and Smith Barney where he advised executives of both public and private firms regarding hedging, monetization, tax minimization, and investing strategies.

Brooks graduated cum laude with a BA from Duke University and earned his MBA with high honors from Southern Methodist University. While at Duke, Brooks participated in archaeological fieldwork with Carol and Eric Meyers. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Brooks joined the ASOR Board in January 2023.

Sarah Kielt Costello

Membership-Elected Trustee

Sarah Kielt Costello (MA Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College; Ph.D. Anthropology, Binghamton University) is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Houston – Clear Lake, a Hispanic-serving regional university dedicated to educating a broad community of scholars, including first-generation, working-class and incarcerated students. She has won two University-wide teaching awards. At UHCL, she recently completed four years on Faculty Senate, including a leadership position in which she oversaw the creation of a new, equitable workload policy for faculty. She has been active in archaeological fieldwork since 1995, working in Israel, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. In her research, Costello specializes in seals and related artifacts; ethics and museum practices; Neolithic imagery; and archaeological theory. Her recent publications include Object Biographies, Selections from the Art of the Ancient World in the Menil Collection (Menil/Yale 2021), a volume that takes on the ethical challenges of unprovenienced museum collections. She is in the final stages of co-editing a volume on Ethics for the ASOR Annual (AASOR).

Costello joined the ASOR Board in January 2023.

Kathryn Grossman

Institutionally-Elected Trustee

Kathryn Grossman is Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University. She is an archaeologist with expertise in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age cultures of Cyprus and Mesopotamia and a methodological specialty in zooarchaeology. She is Director of the ASOR-affiliated Makounta-Voules Archaeological Project, as well as zooarchaeologist for the Kani Shaie Archaeological Project (Iraqi Kurdistan), the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition (Egypt), the Petra North Ridge Project (Jordan), and the Temple of the Winged Lions Cultural Resource Management Project (Jordan). She is currently co-editing, with Jesse Casana and Eric Jensen, the final report on the excavations at Tell Qarqur, Syria.

Grossman has been a member of ASOR’s Committee on Archaeological Research and Policy and served as Chair of the Fellowship Committee (2016-2021). She received ASOR’s Membership Service Award in 2021 in recognition of her work on the Fellowship Committee.

Grossman joined the ASOR Board in January 2023.

Michael Hasel

Institutionally-Elected Trustee

Michael G. Hasel is Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Lynn H. Wood Archaeological Museum at Southern Adventist University, where he has also served as Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Archaeology since 1998.

Hasel has participated and served in administrative capacities on ten different excavations in the Middle East, including Gezer, Ashkelon, Dor, Miqne-Ekron, Masada, and Hazor, in Israel; Idalion, Cyprus; and Jalul in Jordan. He has directed excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa and currently is co-director of the Fourth Expedition to Lachish. As curator of the Lynn H. Wood Archaeological Museum, Hasel was responsible for planning and displaying art and objects from the ancient Near East in a state-of-the-art exhibit entitled “Vessels in Time: A Journey Into the Biblical World.”

Hasel, an ASOR member since 1989, has chaired several ASOR sessions and served on the Agenda Committee. He held the Samuel H. Kress Fellowship at the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR) in 1995-96 and a Fulbright at the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) in 2005. He is also a fellow of the Institute for Biblical Research.

Hasel joined the ASOR Board in January 2014.

Alex MacAllister

Board-Elected Trustee

Alex MacAllister, a native of Indianapolis, is Regional Rental Operations Manager at MacAllister Machinery Co., Inc. Previously, MacAllister served the company as a Management Trainee, a Used Equipment Sales Specialist, and a Rental Counter Representative, and, more recently, as Branch Co-Manager in Westfield, Indiana, and as District Operations Manager for Northern Indiana. MacAllister Machinery Co., Inc., was founded in 1945 by Alex’s great-grandfather, E.W. MacAllister, and is headquartered in Indianapolis. The company is Indiana’s leading heavy equipment supplier.

During high school and college, MacAllister travelled on study-abroad trips to Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan, and he has also traveled extensively with his family. He is a history enthusiast, and he also has a deep appreciation for the natural world, for sports (especially racing vintage sports cars), and for his religious community in Indianapolis.

In addition to serving on the ASOR Board, MacAllister is a member of the Board and a member of the Development Committee of the Friends of Garfield Park, Inc., whose mission is to ensure the preservation and evolution of the public benefits of Garfield Park. Garfield Park is the oldest city park in Indianapolis and includes among its facilities the MacAllister Center for the Performing Arts, named in honor of MacAllister’s grandfather and ASOR’s former Board Chair (from 1994-2013) P. E. MacAllister.

Alex MacAllister joined the ASOR Board in 2021.

Robert Mullins

Membership-Elected Trustee

Robert (Bob) Mullins is a professor of Biblical Studies at Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles where he is also Chair of the Department of Biblical and Religious Studies. His research interests encompass Egyptian-Canaanite interaction during the Late Bronze Age, the Late Bronze/Iron Age I transition, Canaanite and Israelite religious cult, and cross-cultural interaction in the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean. Mullins currently co-directs the archaeological project at Abel Beth Maacah in northern Israel. Elsewhere in Israel, he has worked as an area supervisor Tel Beth Shean and Tel Rehov under the direction of Prof. Amihai Mazar. Outside of Israel, he worked for two projects in southeastern Turkey at Tell Atchana (Alalakh) and Zincirli Hoyuk (Samal) under the auspices of the University of Chicago.

Mullins has been a regular member of ASOR since 1996, and over the years, he has served as a chair for multiple sessions at the ASOR Annual Meeting. He also held the U.S. Information Agency Junior Research Fellowship at the W. F. Albright Institute for Oriental Research in 1197-98 and he was the James A. Montgomery Fellow at the Albright from 1998-2002. He served as an ASOR trustee from 2008-2013 and rejoined the ASOR Board in January 2020.

OVERSEAS INSTITUTE TRUSTEES

J.P. Dessel

W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR)

J. P. Dessel is the Steinfeld Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History at the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on the rise of social complexity, urban-rural dynamics in the Bronze and Iron Ages, and ethnicity in the ancient world. He has participated in excavations in Israel, Turkey, Egypt and North America. He has directed the excavation of two village sites, Tell el-Wawiyat and Tell ‘Ein Zippori, in the Lower Galilee of Israel. He has also served as the co-field director at Tell Tayinat in Turkey and is currently a member of the excavation team working at Abel Beth Maacah.

Dessel also currently serves as the President of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR). Previously, he served as Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary of the Albright Board. He has been a member of the Albright Board since 2000. Within ASOR, Dessel served on the editorial board of Biblical Archaeologist (BA) from 1994-1997 and continued in this position from 1997-2000 under the journal’s new name, Near Eastern Archaeology (NEA). He became the Albright representative to the ASOR Board in 2015.

In November 2012, Dessel received ASOR’s W. F. Albright Service Award, which honors an individual who has shown special support or made outstanding service contributions to one of the overseas centers, ACOR, AIAR, CAARI, or to one of the overseas committees – the Baghdad Committee and the Damascus Committee.

Nancy Serwint

Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI)

Nancy Serwint is Associate Professor in the School of Art at Arizona State University (ASU). She also held the position of Associate Director of the School of Art at ASU from 2003-2006 and then again beginning in 2021. At ASU, she teaches ancient art and archaeology with a focus on the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean basin.

As a classical archaeologist, Serwint has worked on excavations in Sicily (Morgantina), in the Athenian Agora, at ancient Corinth, and since 1983 at ancient Marion/Arsinoe in Cyprus; she now serves as the co-director of the Princeton University excavations at the site. Her research interests have been varied, with investigations and publications dealing with ancient athleticism, athletic representations in the Greek sculptural repertoire, and gender issues in Cyprus and the ancient Near East. Her recent work is devoted to the study of the coroplastic arts of Cyprus and ancient Israel, focusing on production and manufacturing strategies, cross-cultural stylistic influences, and the role played by terracotta votive sculpture in cult ritual and religious worship.

Serwint was President of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) from 1996-1999. She joined the ASOR Board in 2021.

HONORARY TRUSTEES

Sheila T. Bishop

Lawrence T. Geraty

C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky

Elizabeth Moynihan

B.W. Ruffner

Lydie Shufro

Gough Thompson, Jr.