Teaching

What I teach

  • Archaeology and human evolution

  • Climate change and long-term human responses

  • Human-animal relationships in deep time

How I teach

  • Interactive, lab-focused, and grounded in discussion

  • Connecting archaeological evidence to present issues

  • Supporting diverse learning styles and backgrounds

My teaching integrates diverse approaches including hands-on laboratory work, collaborative projects, and experiential activities to engage students with varied learning styles and backgrounds. I also recognize that many of my students will go on to work outside or in collaboration with the discipline. By connecting archaeological evidence to modern debates, I enourage students to develop critical thinking skills, data analysis capabilities, and spatial reasoning that will serve them across diverse career paths.

I’m always very aware of how teaching benefits me. By requiring me to clearly communicate complex archaeological concepts to non-specialists, it anchors my research and ensure that I maintain a firm grasp on the basics of the field. Through this process of distilling ideas for different types of learners , I am pushed to think creatively about my work, draw new connections between the past and present, and imagine collaborative links with other disciplines.

Zooarchaeology demonstration, Sudan (image © L. Varadzin)

Recent teaching

  • University of Oxford: Tutorials in Perspectives on Human Evolution and Archaeological and Anthropological Enquiry; Lab instruction for palaeoanthropology practicals.

  • Washington University in St. Louis: Instructor for World Archaeology, Introduction to Human Evolution (online and in-person), and Climate Change and Anthropology, plus teaching assistant roles in introductory archaeology, African prehistory, and zooarchaeology.

Awards and certifications: Washington University in St. Louis Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence, University Teaching Center Citation, Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning Associate Level Membership.

Example courses

  • This course examines humanity's deep history across two million years, demonstrating how archaeological evidence provides crucial perspectives on contemporary global challenges. While written records span only 5,000 years, archaeological research reveals the long-term processes that shaped modern societies, offering essential baselines for understanding agricultural sustainability, global trade networks, and cultural heritage preservation.

    Through cutting-edge research from diverse global contexts, students explore:

    Human Origins and Migration: Early technological innovations and cultural adaptations

    Agricultural Revolutions: Development of food production systems worldwide

    Urban Civilizations: Rise of complex societies and trade networks

    Cultural Contact and Exchange: How societies adapted to interaction and change

    Students engage with hands-on analysis of artifacts, environmental data, and comparative case studies, developing skills in data interpretation, critical thinking, and cross-cultural analysis. The course emphasizes archaeology's contemporary relevance by connecting ancient innovations to modern sustainability challenges, examining how past societies successfully navigated environmental change and resource management.

  • This course examines how human communities have responded to climate variability over millennia, providing crucial insights for understanding contemporary environmental challenges. While rising global temperatures and extreme weather events pose unprecedented challenges, archaeological evidence reveals how societies have successfully adapted to dramatic climate changes throughout prehistory.

    Through comparative analysis of human responses to climate change spanning 50,000 years, students explore:

    Ice Age Adaptations: How Paleolithic communities survived extreme environmental conditions

    Holocene Transitions: Agricultural development during post-glacial climate stabilization

    Collapse and Continuity: Why some societies failed while others thrived during crises

    Innovation and Sustainability: Archaeological evidence of successful resource management

    Students engage with environmental data analysis, cross-cultural comparison, and case studies from diverse global contexts. Laboratory components include paleoenvironmental reconstruction techniques and analysis of archaeological evidence for climate adaptation strategies.

  • This course investigates humanity's diverse relationships with animals over the last ~2 million years, examining how these interactions have shaped human societies and what they reveal about contemporary challenges. Through wide-ranging lectures and hands-on learning experiences, we explore fundamental questions about our place in the natural world: Are we responsible for keeping other animals alive? And what's the difference between eating a cow and eating a horse?

    The course combines theoretical frameworks with practical zooarchaeological training, covering:

    Deep Time Foundations: How animals made us human and shaped cultural evolution

    Domestication and Commensalism: From dogs as hangers-on to family members

    Symbolic Dimensions: Animals in ritual, religion, and food taboos

    Methodological Approaches: Reading animal bones and biomolecular analysis

    Students engage with hands-on laboratory sessions using world-class facilities, including species identification labs, experimental archaeology (morphometrics, bone burning), and museum visits. We also explore dvanced techniques such as stable isotope analysis and ancient DNA methods, providing familiarity with cutting-edge archaeological science.

Nubian ruins in central Sudan