My dissertation work engages with the relationship between the Mahan and Baekje societies of southwestern Korea by taking a critical look at patterns of ceramic production, exchange, and use. I am also actively engaged in several ongoing projects with my colleagues at the University of Oregon, including the Academy of Korean Studies KSPS Laboratory directed by Dr. Gyoung-Ah Lee, as well as Dr. Lee’s National Geographic Explorer project focused on investigating the earliest Neolithic settlers of Jeju Island, Korea. On these projects, I serve as a specialist on ceramic geochemical analysis, with a view to understanding the everyday realities, multi-scalar identities, and ideologies of the people who made pottery found in the archaeological record.

I have also served as an archaeobotanical specialist on the Yiluo Project, directed by Dr. Li Liu of Stanford University and Dr. Xingcan Chen of the Chinese National Academy of Social Sciences. I collected sediment samples from survey sites during the 2011 field season, in order to examine changing plant use from the mid-Neolithic to the early state period.