NEAAAL Alumni
Laura Paisley
2025
Laura Paisley is a 2025 graduate of the Historical Archaeology master’s program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse in 2020, double majoring in Archaeology and History. Laura first worked with UMass Boston in 2018 in Plymouth, MA, excavating the town’s original 17th century settlement. She went on to work in cultural resource management across the Midwest and southern United States prior to beginning graduate school. Her work in NEAAAL has included assisting a large collection management project of material from Sylvester Manor to make artifacts more accessible for future research. Additionally, Laura’s thesis research has focused on analyzing how the racialization of space changed on Nantucket Island following the decline in whaling in the mid-nineteenth century. This thesis will aid in better understanding the full history of the New Guinea community, an Afro-Indigenous community that formed on Nantucket in the late eighteenth century, and how the island’s historical narrative has influenced the way its diverse history has been preserved.
Kristen M. Delatour
2026
Kristen Delatour is a graduate of the Historical Archaeology Master's program at UMass Boston. Her thesis examines a zooarchaeological collection from Sylvester Manor to explore the role of enslaved labor and animal husbandry over time. Her research integrates Afro-descendent knowledge into environmental archaeology, with a focus on Afro-diasporic foodways as a lens into Black experiences of enslavement. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology with a minor in English from the City University of New York, where she studied Afro-descendent histories in the Northeastern United States and the Caribbean within the context of transatlantic economies. At NEAAAL, she has transformed archaeological data into public-facing digital content and researching African American and Afro-Indigenous histories in the Northeast. As a Haitian American anthropologist, Kristen is dedicated to using archaeology to illuminate Black life and heritage.
Claire Ross
2026
Claire Ross is a graduate of the Historical Archaeology master’s program at UMass Boston. She graduated from the University of Mary Washington in 2021 with majors in Anthropology and Historic Preservation. During her time at UMW, Claire developed a passion for a multidisciplinary approach to studying the past, blending archaeology, architectural history, and documentary research. After graduating, Claire worked as an archaeological technician in cultural resource management and at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. During her time with NEAAAL, she collaborated with fellow NEAAAL members on projects related to Sylvester Manor, including genealogical and document research, public outreach, and report writing. Claire’s research interests focus on 19th-century material culture, the built environment, and the intersections of gender and race. Her thesis explores the archaeology of Sylvester Manor’s 19th-century dairy, its associated midden, and the role of Black women’s labor in the operation of the estate.
Samantha M. Side
2026
Samantha Side is a graduate of the Historical Archaeology master’s program at the UMass Boston. Sam graduated from the University of Delaware with a major in Anthropology and a minor in Biology. During her undergraduate education, she interned at the State of Delaware’s office of Historic and Cultural affairs. It was through this internship that Sam learned ceramic identification, and found an interest in small finds, especially items of personal adornment. Sam’s Master’s thesis uses small finds materials as well as documentary evidence to better understand the types of labor that European settler women were doing during the early colonial provisioning plantation period at Sylvester Manor. In doing this, she aims to understand how European women were participating in the creation and reproduction of forms of power that aided in the growth of their family’s wealth, the exchange and spread of colonial ideology, and the exploitation of those whose labor they profited from.
