Lynn Meskell facts for kids

Lynn Meskell, born in 1967, is an archaeologist and anthropologist from Australia. She is currently a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Since 2020, she has been a special professor in the Penn Integrates Knowledge Program (PIK). This program chooses professors who are experts in many different subjects and teach in at least two schools at the university.

Professor Meskell also teaches anthropology and historic preservation. She helps manage the Middle East and Asia collections at the Penn Museum. She has also been a visiting professor at Cornell University since 2019.

Her Education Journey

Lynn Meskell earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Arts (BA), from the University of Sydney in 1994. She did so well that she received a special University Medal.

Later, she received a scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge in England. There, she earned her PhD in archaeology between 1994 and 1997. For her PhD, she studied an ancient Egyptian village called Deir el-Medina. This village was home to the workers who built tombs for pharaohs in the New Kingdom of Egypt.

What She Does

After finishing her studies, Professor Meskell worked at several famous universities. From 1997 to 1999, she was a research fellow at New College, Oxford at the University of Oxford.

Then, she moved to New York City and taught at Columbia University until 2005. From 2005 to 2020, she was a professor in the Anthropology Department at Stanford University. She even led the Stanford Archaeology Center from 2010 to 2016.

Since 2020, Professor Meskell has been teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. She works in both the College of Arts and Sciences and the Weitzman School of Design. She also helps curate, or look after, collections at the Penn Museum.

In 2004, she received a special fellowship that helped her learn about ethnography and African studies. This training prepared her to do fieldwork in South Africa. She explored places like the Kruger National Park and Mapungubwe National Park.

Exploring the Past

Professor Meskell is interested in many things, including how societies work, what is right and wrong in archaeology, and how we protect important places around the world. She is well-known for her work in feminist archaeology, which looks at how women and gender roles are understood in the past. She also studies how we protect historical sites.

Her early research looked at daily life in ancient Egypt during the New Kingdom of Egypt. She also studied natural and cultural heritage in South Africa. She explored ancient figurines and burials at a very old site in Turkey called Çatalhöyük.

Professor Meskell has also studied UNESCO World Heritage sites. She looked closely at how the World Heritage Program works. She examined how different countries and groups decide what places are important to protect and how these decisions affect people and diplomacy.

She has also done fieldwork in India. There, she explores how big historical sites are researched and preserved. She also looks at how different groups help the people who live near these important sites.

Professor Meskell started a journal called Journal of Social Archaeology. The first issue was published in June 2001.

Awards and Recognition

Professor Meskell is an Honorary Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and at Shiv Nadar University in India.

She has received many grants and fellowships for her research for over 20 years. These awards have come from important organizations like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

In 2017, she was chosen as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In the same year, she received an Honorary Doctorate from the American University of Rome in Italy.

The Penn Museum, where Professor Meskell helps curate collections.

Books

Professor Meskell has written and edited many books about her research. These books share her findings on topics like ancient Egypt, global heritage, and archaeological ethics.

See also

In Spanish: Lynn Meskell para niños