2018 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

The Executive Committee of the ASOR Board of Trustees acts on behalf of the Board to manage the business and affairs of ASOR between the regular Board meetings is composed of the Board Chair, Vice Chair(s) of the Board (if any), President, Past President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Chair of the Development Committee, and two (2) or three (3) other Trustees.

Richard L. Coffman

Chair of the Board
(until December 31, 2019)

Richard L. Coffman, a native Texan, is a trial lawyer and managing partner of the Coffman Law Firm in Beaumont, Texas. His law practice focuses on class actions, mass actions, and business litigation throughout the United States. He has been named a Texas Super Lawyer.

Before attending law school, Coffman, who also is a Certified Public Accountant, worked for two international public accounting firms. He also served as an adjunct member of the accounting faculties of the University of Washington and University of Texas business schools. Coffman regularly travels on mission trips to South Sudan.

Prior to taking up his current position as ASOR Board Chair, on July 1, 2016, Coffman served as ASOR’s Assistant Treasurer in 2012 and as the ASOR Treasurer, from January 1, 2013, through June 30, 2016. He also served on the ASOR 2016-2020 Strategic Planning Task Force and the ASOR Branding Task Force. As Chair of the Board, Coffman also sits on several ASOR committees.

Susan Ackerman

President
(until December 31, 2019)

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 is currently serving as the Chair of the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (a position she also held from 2002-2004). 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.

Prior to taking up her position as ASOR President, on January 1, 2014, 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.

P. E. MacAllister

Chair of the Board, Emeritus

E. MacAllister is Chair of the Board of MacAllister Machinery in Indianapolis, Indiana. He started working with his father in the tractor business in 1945 (after he was honorably discharged from the Army Air Corps), and he assumed management of the business in 1951. He ran the business for forty years, passing it to his son Chris in 1991 and assuming the position of Chair of the Board.

A curbstone student of history and the classics, whether literature or music, MacAllister has worked extensively in the church, Near Eastern archaeology, TV programming, education, and Republican politics. He writes continuously and has published three books.

MacAllister became involved in ASOR in 1968, and he has served on the ASOR Board since 1976. He held the position of Chair of the Board from 1994–2013, when he was appointed Chair of the Board, Emeritus. MacAllister also holds an appointment as a Life Trustee of ASOR.

In 1996, he received ASOR’s most prestigious award, the Richard J. Scheuer Medal, for lifetime achievement and professional service. The P. E. MacAllister Excavation Fellowships, established in 2013 by the MacAllister family and ASOR friends, also honor his long-standing service to ASOR.

Andrew G. Vaughn

Executive Director
(until June 30, 2021)

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).

Sharon Herbert

Vice President
(until December 31, 2019)

Sharon Herbert is the Charles K. Williams II Distinguished University Professor of Classical Archaeology and former chair of the Department of Classical Studies and Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of 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.

In addition to serving as ASOR Vice President, a position that she has held since January 1, 2013, Herbert 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.

Tim Harrison

Past President
(until December 31, 2019)

Tim Harrison is Professor and Chair of the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto, where he has been on the faculty since 1997. Harrison previously served as the Department’s Associate Chair and Graduate Coordinator.

Harrison’s research specialties include complex societies, Near Eastern archaeology, Bronze and Iron Age civilizations, urbanism, ethnicity, exchange networks, ceramic analysis, and archaeological method and theory. He directs the CRANE project (Computational Research on the Ancient Near East), which seeks to create an analytical framework to integrate the huge amount of complex and interrelated Near Eastern archaeological data, ranging from settlement patterns to ceramics. He is in addition the Project Director of the Tayinat Archaeological project, which was launched in 1999, and is a member of the project staff of the Tell Madaba Archaeological Project.

Harrison first joined the ASOR Board in January 2000 and served two terms as ASOR’s President from 2008-2013. During this time, he took responsibility for major initiatives within ASOR, including the creation of ASOR’s Strategic Plan for 2011-2015 and the ASOR Policy on Professional Conduct. Harrison also led the extraordinarily successful “Building a Foundation for ASOR” capital campaign, which raised $1.7 million for ASOR’s endowment and other programming initiatives. Currently, in addition to serving as Past President, he is the Chair of the Board’s Committee on the ASOR Policy on Professional Conduct and is a member of the Development Committee.

In November 2014, Harrison received ASOR’s most prestigious award, the Richard J. Scheuer Medal, for lifetime achievement and professional service.

Ann-Marie Knoblauch

Secretary
(from January 1, 2019, until December 31, 2021)

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.

Heather McKee

Treasurer
(until December 31, 2020)

Heather McKee has held multiple management positions in the field of healthcare policy. Most recently, she served as the Executive Director of The Sublette Center, in Pinedale, WY, a nonprofit senior health and housing organization, and while in Wyoming, she was a member of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Health Finance Reform. Prior to that, she worked as a Project Manager for the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, a Program Manager and Instructor in Medical Ethics, at The Medical College of Wisconsin, and a Grant Writer and Grants Administrator for The Milwaukee Indian Health Board, in Milwaukee, WI. She has also served as Director of The Bonner Scholars Program and The Center for Service-Learning at Mars Hill College, in Mars Hill, NC, and as a Staff Accountant at Arthur Andersen & Company, in Charlotte, NC.

Currently, McKee is involved in several volunteer activities. She serves on the Board of Directors, and is the Co-Chair of the Finance Committee, of the Davidson Housing Coalition, and she is a Founding Member of The North Mecklenburg Homelessness Task Force. She also serves as a mentor in the “Leadership Davidson” program at Davidson College, her undergraduate alma mater, and she serves the Davidson College Presbyterian Church as a deacon and in numerous other capacities.

McKee has been ASOR Treasurer since January 1, 2018.

Lynn Swartz Dodd

Secretary
(until December 31, 2018)

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 has been ASOR Secretary since January 1, 2013.

In November 2015, she received the ASOR Membership Service Award. In November 2018, she received the Charles Harris Service Award.

Jane DeRose Evans

Membership-Elected Trustee

Jane DeRose Evans is Professor 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 Javols, France, she is now project numismatist for the Harvard/Cornell Excavations in Sardis and the George Washington University excavations at Bir Madhkur (Jordan). She has also worked in Israel, Italy, England, and Philadelphia.

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.

Eric M. Meyers

Board-Elected Trustee
(until December 31, 2018)

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

Board-elected Trustee
(until December 31, 2020)

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 the Chair of the Officers Nominations Committee and as a member of 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.

J. Edward Wright

Institutionally-Elected Trustee
(until December 31, 2018)

Edward (Ed) Wright is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism and Director of The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona. Wright’s area of expertise is early Jewish history and religion with particular interest in early Jewish apocryphal texts — texts that shed light on the non-traditional aspects of early Jewish thought and culture, allowing for a more accurate depiction of the rich diversity of early Judaism.

Wright is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Museum of Biblical Archaeology, a new national public museum that will be devoted to the history, culture, and people of the land of the Bible. In addition, he serves as a co-editor of “The Bible and Interpretation” website, and he is a past President of the Society of Biblical Literature, Pacific Coast Region.

Within ASOR, Wright was the guest editor of a special issue of Near Eastern Archaeology — “The House that Albright Built” (NEA 65/1). He has served as an ASOR Trustee since 2006, and he also served two terms as President of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR), from 2006-2012. He remains an Honorary Trustee of the Albright. Currently, Wright serves as the Chair of the ASOR Board’s Development Committee.

In November 2012, Wright 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.