Graduate Students | UCLA Archaeology Skip to main content Give Menu About Graduate Student Association People Faculty Staff Graduate Students Visiting Scholars Academics Degree Requirements Courses Funding Academic Forms & Helpful Links Admissions News Cotsen Institute Search form Search Search Home/ People Graduate Students Faculty Staff Graduate Students Visiting Scholars Graduate Student Taylor Carr-Howard Areas of Interest: Art and archaeology of the Roman provinces, archaeological photographs, cultural heritage, classical reception Taylor Carr-Howard studies Roman provincial art and archaeology through the lens of its reception. In particular, she is interested in the role photography plays in shaping perceptions of the classical past. Taylor received her BA in art history from Scripps College in 2017 and her MA in... Alex Casteel Areas of Interest: (northern) medieval archaeology, architecture, art, literature, and society, and particularly of the transatlantic Norse/Viking diaspora Alex Casteel is a PhD candidate in the Interdepartmental Archaeology Graduate Program in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Drawing from archaeological and historical sources alongside his transdisciplinary field research, Alex's dissertation... Manuel Cesar Macuja Elizalde Areas of Interest: Historical Archaeology of the Early Modern Philippines & the Roman Mediterranean, Piracy and Raiding, Interregional Maritime Trade, Filipino & Iberian/Basque Shipbuilding, Maritime & Underwater Archaeology, Community-based Archaeology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  Manuel Cesar "Mac" Macuja Elizalde was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. He earned a B.A. in Anthropology and Classics from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY in 2023. At Skidmore, he specialized in Roman history, completing a thesis project on the application of Geographic Informations... Yunong Gu Areas of Interest: Archaeology of Bronze Age China, Zooarchaeology; Economic history; Settlement Archaeology Yunong Gu is a native of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China. He received his B.A. and M.A. in archaeology from the Department of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University. When he was in Peking University, he excavated several sites of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, such as Pingliangtai,... Earl Hernandez Areas of Interest: Spanish colonialism during the early modern period Earl John Cedo Hernandez is an anthropological archaeologist from Bicol, Philippines. He received his BA in Political Science from the Ateneo de Naga University in 2015 and MA in Anthropology from the University of the Philippines - Diliman in 2022. As a Bikolano anthropologist he is broadly... Ariadin Jones Areas of Interest: Late Neolithic - Early Bronze Age China Ariadin Jones’ current research trajectory began as an undergraduate at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she majored in Asian Area Studies and minored in Archaeology, with an additional concentration in bioarchaeology. Looking to combine these interests, she attended the UCLA... Katrina Kuxhausen Areas of Interest: Cultural heritage, digital archaeology, landscape, architecture, reuse, memory, and gender studies within ancient Greece and Rome Katrina Kuxhausen-DeRose is pursuing a PhD in Archaeology at UCLA, with a focus in Classical Archaeology. Her research interests include cultural heritage, digital archaeology, landscape, architecture, reuse, memory, and gender studies within ancient Greece and Rome. She began researching this... Lucha Martínez de Luna Areas of Interest: Mesoamerican interregional trade networks, merchants, feasting, sociopolitical organization in complex societies, and the Zoque civilization. Lucha Martínez de Luna was born and raised in Colorado. She has worked on numerous archaeological projects in the American West and Southwest, as well as in central and southern Mexico. She worked for the National Institute of Anthropology and History conducting the excavation and restoration of a... Alba Menéndez Pereda Areas of Interest: Inca Empire, Andes, Indigenous archaeology, landscape studies, environmental humanities, built environment, architecture, reuse, ecology, materiality, ritual practices, sacredness, performance, sensory experiences, sound, colonialism in the Americas, transatlantic exchanges Alba Menéndez Pereda (she/her/hers) is an interdisciplinary archaeologist specialized in the Inca Empire and with experience conducting fieldwork, studying legacy collections in museums and storage facilities, and reading and transcribing documentary sources in archives. Her current research... Iman Nagy Iman Jamal Nagy is a Northeast African Landscape Archaeologist, Surveyor and student of Digital Humanities that has been a part of and conducted research projects in Northeast Africa and Southeast Asia. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures... Talia Neelis Areas of Interest: Cypriot archaeology of the second and third millenniums BCE, ceramic analysis, crafting traditions, communities of practice, network analysis, feminist epistemologies and philosophies of scientific knowledge.    Talia Neelis is pursuing a PhD at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA with a focus in prehistoric Cypriot archaeology. Talia earned a B.A. in Eastern Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies with a minor in Art History from the University of British Columbia in 2025, where she was awarded the... Carly Pope Areas of Interest: Pottery of Central America Carly Pope was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. She earned her BA, with honors, in art and archaeology from Princeton University in 2016. Her senior thesis, on the topic of early pottery in Latin America, received the Frederick Barnard White thesis award. She presented her research at the annual... Kellie Roddy Areas of Interest: Archaeology of western Mexico, specifically examining the rise of social differentiation in early classic Mesoamerican sites, and the development of household and political organization in prehispanic Mesoamerica.   Kellie Roddy earned BAs in both Archaeology and the History of Art from Brown University in 2015. After her graduation, she participated in cultural resource positions in several projects in Arizona, California, and New Mexico. Some of these were private projects, others were administered by the US... Luis Rodríguez-Pérez Areas of Interest: Urbanism and landscape in the Mediterranean during the Hellenistic & Roman period.  Topography of ancient sites. Applied photogrammetry and 3D modeling. Archaeological reconstruction of architectural sites. Religious syncretism and multi-culturalism in the Ancient World. Anthropological Ethnography. Public & Community-led archaeology. Luis Rodriguez-Perez was born in Cuba and moved to Miami at a young age. He earned a BA in archaeology and history, with a minor in Classics, at the University of Southern California. He has participated in several excavation and survey projects in Italy and Greece, including at Pompeii, Vergina,... Karla Saracay Areas of Interest: California Archaeology, Historic Archaeology, Mexican Rancho Period, Contemporary Archeology  Karla Saracay earned her BA in Anthropology from UC Berkeley in 2021. She worked at the McCown Archaeobotany Laboratory from 2018-2022 working with the Upper Mantaro Archaeological Research Project’s (UMARP) legacy collection. Her BA thesis was focused on households and artifact distributions... Rachel Schloss Areas of Interest: Architectural Construction Technologies, Inca Archaeology, Andean Archaeology, Colonial Andes, Archaeology of Colonialism in the Americas, Adobe/ Mudbrick, Place-Making, Temporality, Geoarchaeology. Rachel Schloss (she/her/hers) is a PhD student at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA. Her doctoral research focuses on architecture and construction (technology, adaptation, and meaning) in Inca architecture from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries AD. Before joining the Cotsen... Gabriel Silva Collins Areas of Interest: Pre-Hispanic Andean archaeology, Inca archaeology, environmental archaeology, borderlands and interregional exchange, wak'as, landscape archaeology Gabriel Silva Collins earned his B.A. in Anthropology from Williams College in 2019. At Williams, he worked with Antonia Foias to study Aztec religious statues, and completed a thesis project that surveyed the interconnected system of Inca roads between Cusco and Huchuy Qosqo, Peru. Gabriel also... Dominique Sparks-Stokes Dominique Sparks-Stokes obtained her BA in archaeology with minors in anthropology and geology at the University of Cincinnati, followed by an MA in anthropology, with a focus on archaeology, from the same institution in 2019. During this time, she investigated the role that ceramic raw... Matei Tichindelean Areas of Interest: Interactions between nomadic and settled population groups in Egypt and Sudan in the Bronze Age, with metal mining and working in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and the Sudan Matei Tichindelean is a PhD candidate in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on the interactions between nomadic peoples of northeast Africa and the settled populations along the Nile Valley. His dissertation combines... Akphivath Vitou Areas of Interest: Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian periods from (6th to 15th centuries CE) in Cambodia; ceramics analysis, archaeological survey and excavation, settlement patterns, remote sensing, landscape archaeology, and Khmer art and architecture. I developed a lifelong fascination with Cambodia’s past. This passion led me to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Archaeology at the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA, 2014), Phnom Penh, and an MA in History of Art and/or Archaeology at SOAS, University of London (2020). My academic journey revolves... Yen Chun Wang Areas of Interest: zooarchaeology, geoarchaeology, Austronesian, East and Southeast Asia Yen Chun Wang received his BA in anthropology with a minor in geosciences from the National Taiwan University in 2020. Yen Chun focuses on the interactions between humans and their environments, but is also interested in topics such as spheres of interaction in East and Southeast Asia, and... Zichao Wang Areas of Interest: History and civilization of early China, especially the political and cultural transformations in late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. Zichao Wang received his BA in culture and arts management at Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, followed by an MA in comparative and public history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and another MA in East Asian studies at McGill University. His research covers the history and civilization of... Zichan Wang Areas of Interest: The transitioning period from the late Neolithic to the early Bronze Age in China, which is a critical period to understand the emergence of civilization.  Zichan Wang is from Jinan, Shandong, China. She obtained her BA and MA in archaeology at Shandong University. Her study in China mainly focused on Bronze Age. During her first year of graduate education she visited Tel Aviv University in Israel to study biblical archaeology, especially in the Iron... Wenyi Zhao Areas of Interest: Interdisciplinary study of early China through archaeology, history, philology, and linguistics within the broader framework of global antiquity; memory and knowledge traditions; formation and fluidity of both textual and material remains; quantitative thinking in archaeology. Wenyi Zhao 趙文浥 was born and raised in Suzhou, China. From 2020 to 2024, she studied at Peking University in Beijing, where she earned a B.A. in History from Yuanpei College and completed a Certificate in Classical Chinese Philology. She received interdisciplinary training focusing on the... Archaeology IDP Graduate Program Cotsen Institute of Archaeology 308 Charles E. Young Dr. North A148 Fowler Building…