Gracie Riehm is a PhD student at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She finished her MA from the University of Alabama with the thesis on Pensacola Archaeological Culture ceramics in May of 2016 and her BA from the University of Georgia in 2014. Her dissertation research will focus on coalescent processes, the movement of groups, and the role identity formation plays in Native American responses to European contact.

Adam Coker, a PhD student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, received his BA in Anthropology from the University of Georgia. He is currently working on an MA paper interpreting feasting deposits as community building events at a site in Southwest Georgia. In the future, his dissertation work will be on using household archaeology as lens for understanding the creation of social identity and the integration of people into new communities during the Early Mississippian.

Matthew Rooney, a PhD student at University of Florida, received an MA in applied anthropology and BAs in anthropology and history from University of South Florida. He works with the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Chickasaw Tribe on protohistoric and historic sites in eastern Mississippi. His dissertation project is based on research and excavations related to a Presbyterian mission school for Chickasaw children established in the 1820s called Charity Hall.

Janene Johnston, a current graduate student at the University of West Florida, received her B.A. in Anthropology from Eastern Kentucky University. Her thesis research focuses on Natural Bridge Battlefield, an 1865 Civil War site in Florida’s panhandle. Janene’s field school at James Madison’s Montpelier sparked an interest in public outreach and she has since worked for the Center for American Archeology, the Florida Public Archaeology Network, and Montpelier.

Jennifer Green, a PhD student at University of Tennessee, received her MA and BA in anthropology from Florida Atlantic University. Her dissertation research is focused on subsistence strategies among prehistoric inhabitants of the northern Everglades and surrounding areas. Other research interests include: climate change, applied zooarchaeology, and public archaeology.

Kimberly Swisher, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, received her MA in Anthropology from the University of Michigan and her BS in Anthropological Sciences from the Ohio State University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural changes, processes, and interactions amongst and between groups of people in the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley in southwest Georgia during the Late Woodland to Early Mississippian period around AD 900 - AD 1300.

Lindsey Cochran is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her M.A. from the University of West Florida in 2013 and her B.S. from the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga in 2010. Her dissertation research focuses on the historical archaeology of the Georgia coastal islands, using critical spatial theory, spatial statistics, and geophysics to examine variation of plantation settlement landscapes and overt architectural connections to the Caribbean and West Africa.

Rhianna Bennett is a current graduate student at Georgia Southern University seeking a Master’s in Social Science with a Certificate in Public History. She graduated from University of Georgia with a B.A. in Anthropology. Her thesis research looks at the current relationship between archaeology and public education in the state of Georgia. During her time at Georgia Southern she has worked with the Georgia Southern Museum, Georgia Council for American Indian Concerns, and as Graduate Assistant to the Camp Lawton Archaeological Project.