Mission Statement

The purpose of the Student Affairs Committee shall be to act in the best interests of student members, both undergraduate and graduate, of SEAC and to serve as a liaison between student members and the SEAC Executive Board. The committee's primary goal shall be to stimulate and encourage interest among student archaeologists while creating a student community within the larger SEAC organization.

To be added to the committee's listserv, please click here.

To contact the committee generally, please email SEACStudentAffairs@gmail.com

2023 Officers

Autumn Melby, Chair, melbya@sas.upenn.edu
Mikayla Absher, Chair-Elect, mikaylalaneabsher@gmail.com
Tara Skipton, Webmaster, taraskipton@utexas.edu
Anthony Farace, Member-at-Large, afarace@ufl.edu
Matthew LoBiondo, Member-at-Large, mvlobiondo@ucsb.edu
Katherine Parker, Member-at-Large, kparke38@vols.utk.edu

Officer Bios

Autumn Melby - Chair

Autumn Melby is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the everyday life and traditions of rural Native households and communities in the Late Mississippian American Bottom.

Mikayla Absher - Chair-Elect

Mikayla Absher is an archeology PhD student at Tulane University. Her research focuses on ceremonial landscapes, monumentality, and the experience of place through landscape archaeology and engaging with Indigenous Native American oral histories. Her work is primarily in the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) and Western North Carolina.

Tara Skipton- Webmaster

Tara Skipton is a PhD student at the University of Texas – Austin. She received her BA in Anthropology and Geography from the University of Florida and her MA in Anthropology from Florida State University. Tara is interested in community-based participatory research and the Black experience in New Orleans and the South at large.

Tony Farace- Member at Large

Tony is a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at the University of Florida. His research interests focus around emergent subjectivities and the co-creation of peoples, practices, and landscapes in the Ohio-Mississippi confluence region of the Central Mississippi River Valley during the Early-Middle Mississippian periods.

Matthew LoBiondo- Member at Large

Matthew LoBiondo is a Ph.D. graduate student in Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara. His research focuses on cultural interactions and transformations, particularly the Late Woodland and early Mississippian transition in Southern Appalachia.

Katerine Parker- Member at Large

Katherine Parker is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Her research explores the relationship between moonshine production and plantation power dynamics in the Postbellum South Carolina Lowcountry through the intersection of identity, memory, heritage, and landscapes.