Q. What is the highlight of your career?
A. I love the fieldwork, figuring out answers to better understand the past, and working with people across disciplines toward conservation and preservation goals. I’ve been fortunate in the experiences I’ve had in archaeology – I’ve uncovered ritual use spaces from 1000 years ago with artifacts that change our understanding of the site and area and also explored battlefields from a war that had been covered by vegetation for 130 years. And I have met and learned from a lot of talented and interesting people.

Q. What are challenges you encounter in your career?
A. When I was in college, I was told that there were 2 basic career paths in archaeology, which, luckily, turned out not to be the case – there are a multitude of paths, study areas, and specialties in which archaeologists work. Some jobs require a certain degree, and it is not uncommon for employers to expect experience (from field schools or internships) for entry-level jobs. In the fieldwork itself, weather (sesonality and day-to-day weather changes) can affect resource visibility and the ability to perform fieldwork throughout parts of the year.

Q. How did you get to this career?
A. ? In elementary school, I specifically thought about how I could work outside and combine several fields, such as geology, math, history, chemistry, and biology and landed on paleontology, which is the study of fossils. Through the years, however, I focused more on the field work (surveying, digging, mapping, etc.) and became more interested in understanding ancient people (rather than other animals and plants). My plan back then was to be an archaeologist when I retired, but as I was looking at colleges, I found myself including good archaeology programs (and field schools) in the criteria and ended up choosing my college (Kenyon College in Ohio) largely because of its semester-abroad opportunity in anthropology and archaeology.

Q. Are there scholarship or internship opportunities available with your career? If so, where can more information about those be found?
A.Passport in Time, NPS volunteers and USFS volunteers (volunteer.gov), Youth Conservation Corps. [There are other ways to get some experience and/or get your foot in the door, including here in Wyoming]