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ArchaeoTek's Field and Laboratory Staff
Dr. Stephen Batiuk
Director
Dr. STEPHEN BATIUK is the co-founder of ArchaeoTek. A well-published archaeologist, with 25 years of research and teaching at the University of Toronto (Canada), Koç University (Turkey), and the Johns Hopkins University (USA), he is now re-joining ArchaeoTek full-time as Director. He holds his degrees from the University of Toronto (MA and Ph.D.) and the University of Ottawa, and his areas of specialization include Near Eastern archaeology (particularly the Bronze and Iron Ages of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and the Caucasus), with vast archaeological experience in the development of complex societies and urbanization, and Archaeological Data and Cultural Heritage Management. He has well-developed skills in Landscape Archaeology, GIS and Remote Sensing uses in Archaeology, and materials analysis, particularly of ancient ceramics. With more than 25 years of fieldwork experience he has participated in over 12 different archaeological projects from CRM work in Canada to excavation projects in Ethiopia, Turkey, Iraq, Israel, Romania, France and Georgia. He is the Director of G.R.A.P.E. - the Gadachrili Gora Regional Archaeological Project Expeditions (Republic of Georgia) where he is exploring (and establishing) the evidence for the earliest known wine, dating to 6,000 – 5800 BCE. He is also the Director of Excavations for the Tayinat Archaeological Project (Turkey), the Project Manager for the Computational Research on the Ancient Near East (Canada) Project, and Field Director at the Shamash Gate Project, Nineveh (Iraq).
Dr. ANDRE GONCIAR was the founder and director of the Archaeological Techniques and Research Center (ArchaeoTek – Canada), as well as its bioarchaeology offshoot, BioArch Canada. He received graduate degrees in History (University of Ottawa, Canada), Applied Geophysics (University of Montpellier III, France) and Anthropology-Archaeology (SUNY Buffalo, USA). After having investigated in one capacity or another almost all historically inhabited environments, he settled on the intensive and historically in-depth exploration of the Carpathian Region, and more specifically, Transylvania (Romania). Since 2000, he personally directed and coordinated over 30 archaeological field schools and research workshops in that area, exploring systems of construction, expression, and performance of power and identity in dynamic and liminal environments. As such, for over 20 years, he investigated human landscapes in Transylvania, ranging from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages. He was particularly interested in the cognitive construction of affordances and use of social-cultural-political-economic capital (in a Bourdieu sense) in transitional, heterarchical settings, as well as patterns of creolization during the Roman occupation of Dacia. Andre passed away in 2025 after fighting a fierce battle with cancer, but not after bringing Dr. Batiuk back to Archaeotek to continue his legacy.
Dr. JONATHAN D. BETHARD is a ABFA board certified forensic anthropologist. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida, where he moved from the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Boston University, where he was heading their Forensics Master's program. He has received his graduate training at the University of Tennessee, including working as a field instructor at the Human Remains Recovery School. His scholarly pursuits so far have included refining methods used for constructing biological profile in forensic contexts, Andean bioarchaeology, stable isotope analysis and geometric morphometrics. On the international scene, Jonathan has worked as an instructor for numerous courses in forensic anthropology with the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) in Colombia and Algeria and has taken over since 2013, ArchaeoTek’s Osteology and Bioarchaeology laboratory programs.
Dr. KATIE ZEJDLIK-PASSALACQUA received her Ph.D. in physical anthropology from Indiana University, under the direction of Dr. Della Cook. She is currently an Assistant Professor and Director of the Forensic Anthropology Facilities (aka. "body farm", one of only six outdoor human decomposition facilities in the US) at Western Carolina University, She moved to WCU after completing her work at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA, formerly JPAC), analyzing skeletal remains of past United States service members to aid in identification of the remains through the comparison of antemortem chest radiographs with postmortem skeletal remains Katie has over ten years of archaeological experience working on projects all over the United States including the American Plains, American Midwest, and Hawaii. She is a Wisconsin state Qualified Burial Excavator and Qualified Burial analyst. Her research focuses on the migration and interaction of people through social and material contextual indicators as well as dental metric and discrete traits as a proxy for genetic relationships. She also has a Master’s certificate in museum studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and was one of the primary team members for the Wisconsin Archaeology permanent exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Katie has presented and published on a range of topics from remote sensing techniques to biological distance. She is directing, since 2015, ArchaeoTek's Funerary Excavations - Lost Churches Project.
Dr. Zsolt Nyárádi received his Ph.D. from Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai in Cluj Napoca (Romania). He is the main archaeologist at the Haáz Rezső Múzeum, and is the excavation director of the Patakfalva-Papdomb and St. Nicholas church in Székelyudvarhely.
Research interest: Medieval and Migration Period Archaeology.
Research areas include the excavation of medieval and principality-period churches and cemeteries; the identification, documentation, and archaeological investigation of ruined medieval churches and chapels. In recent years, my work has focused on the archaeological excavation of noble residences — manor houses, mansions, and castles — the clarification of patterns of landownership, and the analysis and study of the associated material culture.
Dr. Mindia Jalabadze is the Chief Curator — Department of Collection Management and Department of Precious Metals, Georgian National Museum. He received his PhD in 1998 from I. Javakhishvili Tibilisi State University. He has worked on various archaeological sites of dirrefent periods in Georgia, and has been directing the work at Gadachrili Gora since 2006.
Renee Reinman is the site Director at Papdomb
Affiliation: University of South Florida
Research interest: Bioarchaeology of Children, Bioarchseology of Care, Identity, Agency, and Personhood.
Book: The Poppy War
Carlos Da Silva Carvalho, is working on his PhD at The Ohio State University Education: The University of Bradford - BSc (Hons) Forensic Archaeology & Anthropology - MS Human Osteology and Paleopathology Research interests: My previous research has focused on the analysis of activity related skeletal change with the aim to identify specialised activity in the past. Using this data with the aim to understand past lived experiences. My research has looked at differences in skeletal morphology of medieval militants and also identifying divisions of labour in past societies.
Book recommendation: Chemistry of Death – Simon Beckett
I'm Cameron Matheson, Archaeological Field Assistant. I have a Bachelor's of Science in Anthropology from Western Carolina University, and I'm currently an independent scholar with research interests in burial goods as protective charms and entheseal changes of the hand. My current book recommendation: the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
Jeremy Wood was a student in the Adult Osteology Lab and Funerary Excavation in 2022 and has since been doing CRM work throughout California. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Evolutionary Anthropology from UC Davis and is a prospective Master's student interested in paleopathology, bioarchaeology of care, and functional morphology. His current book recommendation is: Angels in America by Tony Kushner.
Ciele Rosenberg is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Research interests: Embodiment, life course theory, structural violence/ inequality, developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), mother infant nexus, gender studies, biopolitics Book recommendation: The Right to Maim - Jasbir Puar
Dima has been involved in numerous archaeological projects and expeditions since 2006. An alumnus of Tbilisi State University (BA in Archaeology, 2010) and Leiden University (MA in Near Eastern Archaeology, 2015) he has been working as a research associate at the Georgian National Museum’s Institute of Archaeology since 2016 when became involved with the project GRAPE and then ARKK (Archaeological Research in Kvemo Kartli). Within the ARKK he has been co-directing excavations at the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age megalithic settlement site of Dmanisis Gora since 2018.
Apart from archaeology he has been involved in co-organizing and guiding off-road cross-country adventure 4x4 rallies and overlanding expeditions in Georgia, Armenia and Oman.
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