About

Alex is an archaeologist, anthropologist, and artist. Alex has conducted research and fieldwork throughout much of North America and Europe. His research interests include North American archaeology, human-environmental interaction, prehistoric archaeology, and archaeology, human ecology, and archaeobiology in the Chesapeake Bay. Alex has worked with Dr. Torben Rick, Director and Curator of North American Archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), and a number of other researchers on the research and analysis of Chesapeake and coastal and marine museum collections, archaeological sites, and environments. His research is focused on analyzing human environmental interactions on Chesapeake coastal archaeological sites. He has recently written a series of research papers on the Chesapeake Bay prehistoric and historic oyster fishery and technological change as a baseline for oyster and other fisheries and ecosystem restoration. This work looks at human technological change and coastal resource use on both sides of the Chesapeake from Native American times until today with the interplay of coastal environmental change and dynamics through time. Alex also managed the photo-documentation of Chesapeake coastal and marine museum collections for this work as well as the use of other digital media. Alex has a deep passion for public outreach, photo-documentation and other digital media, and communications to extend coastal and marine science and museum collections to the public as well as extensive experience with Chesapeake Bay coastal and marine species and ecology. Alex is currently working on several sensory projects and installations using photographs, sound recordings, illustration, and other media.

Alex has researched and analyzed museum collections and archaeological sites at Fishing Bay, Maryland and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), Maryland, as well as a number of other museum collections, which has been published in a series of scholarly publications. Alex has looked at archaeological sites, artifacts, and faunal remains to reconstruct ancient environments to look at the present. Alex’s work has been cited in Landscape Ecology, Scientific Reports, Antiquity, Radiocarbon, Quaternary International, Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, Journal of Ethnobiology, Marine Conservation Paleobiology, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Restoration Ecology, and Geoarchaeology. Alex is currently conducting archaeological and ecological research in the Chesapeake and is interested in issues related to human ecology, conservation, sustainability, biodiversity, biogeochemical, geological, and geoarchaeological analysis. He is also using photo-documentation, illustration, and hydrophone recording in the research of coastal, marine, and ecological sites, organisms, and environments. Alex also has a background in North American, European, Scandinavian, Mediterranean, Near Eastern, Egyptian, and Asian archaeology, art, and art history and Modern and Contemporary art and art history.

Alex has worked extensively on sites with Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, Contact, and Historical Period occupations. He also has a background in museum, collections, exhibitions, and curatorial management and is interested in collections and digital collections management, cultural heritage and digital cultural heritage management, digital cultural heritage, collections and cultural heritage digitization, archaeological photography, museum and virtual exhibitions, cultural heritage and history, photography and digital media in archaeology, photo-documentation and artifact photography, and research, digital, and digital media methodologies. He has conducted fieldwork throughout the region. Alex is also a photography, digitization, and media specialist. Alex has worked on a number of photography, digitization, media, and digital imaging field and museum collections projects.

Alex has worked with the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History Program in Human Ecology and Archaeobiology, the Arctic Studies Center, the Inuvialuit Living History project, and many other partners. Alex has worked with the Smithsonian Institution on the photo-documentation and digitization of the MacFarlane Collection for the Inuvialuit Living History project online exhibition, which is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre, the Simon Fraser University School of Interactive Arts and Technology Making Culture Lab, Ursus Heritage Consulting, and many other governmental and community partners. Alex also worked on the photo-documentation, documentation, and digitization of the Smithsonian Institution Arctic Studies Center 18th Inuit Studies Conference, which will be produced into an online exhibition by the Smithsonian. Alex’s photographic work has been published and exhibited through the Smithsonian Institution and published in Anthropolog, the Arctic Studies Center Newsletter, and Museum Anthropology Review.

Alex has also worked on a number of publication initiatives, which include the production of four upcoming publications on his archaeological work through the Smithsonian Institution and a number of other publications with other collaborators and partners.