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Our Team
Get to know our team below and learn about the diverse expertise and unique perspectives that drive our research. From fieldwork to groundbreaking studies, we are dedicated to uncovering and sharing the rich history of Black life in New England through archaeological research.
Nedra Lee
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Associate Professor, Anthropology Department
Nedra Lee examines the intersection of race, class, sex, and gender in the lives of African Americans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although her research primarily focuses on freed Black landowners in the United States South and Southwest, she has a growing interest in the archaeology of New England and partnered with Dr. David Landon of the Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research in overseeing archaeological excavations of the historic Boston-Higginbotham House on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts in 2014. Dr. Lee has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Texas Historical Commission and previously worked for the Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the City Museum of Washington, DC.
Kristen M. Delatour
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Graduate Student
Kristen Delatour is currently a third-year student in the Historical Archaeology master’s program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her master's thesis analyzes a zooarchaeological collection at Sylvester Manor, a 17th-century provisioning plantation in New York, to consider the history of enslaved labor over time concerning animal husbandry. Kristen is interested in applying Afro-descendent knowledge within the practice of environmental archaeology. She graduated from the City University of New York City College in Anthropology with a minor in English. During her time, Kristen researched the Afrodescendent past in the Northeastern United States and the Caribbean, analyzing the development of transatlantic economies. Kristen is interested in how the study of Afro-diasporic foodways presents a portrait of experiences of the Afro-descendent past in navigating enslavement. She has worked for the New England African American Archaeology Lab since 2022, assisting in content creation from archaeological data into digitally accessible public programming and conducting historical research related to sites exploring African American and Afro-Indigenous histories in the Northeastern United States. As a Haitian American anthropologist, Kristen’s research aims to contribute to better stewardship of the material past as a vessel for understanding Black life through historic foodways.
Enoch Sey Koomson
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Graduate Student
Enoch Koomson is currently a second-year student in the Historical Archaeology master’s program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Originally from Ghana, he earned a bachelor's degree in Archaeology and Psychology from the University of Ghana. Enoch's research focuses on smoking pipes from Sylvester Manor, exploring how Anglo-Dutch hostilities influenced tobacco pipe consumption and trade networks in the Atlantic world. Also, he has participated in archaeological projects in both Ghana and the United States. In Ghana, he worked on the Axim Archaeological Project, studying the pre-European lifeways of the Brawire people of Axim. In the U.S., he contributed to the Eastern Pequot Archaeological Field School, gaining experience in Indigenous archaeology and colonial interactions.
Tess Ostoyich
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Graduate Student
Tess Ostoyich is currently a first-year student in the Historical Archaeology master’s program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Prior to coming to UMass Boston, Tess worked at Mount Vernon as an archaeological technician.
Laura Paisley
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Graduate Student
Laura Paisley is currently a third-year student in 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.
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Claire Ross
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Graduate Student
Claire Ross is currently a second-year student in 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. She currently collaborates 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
she/her
Graduate Student
Samantha Side is currently a second-year student in the Historical Archaeology master’s program at the University of Massachusetts 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.
Ella T. Virkler
she/her
Graduate Student
Ella Virkler is currently a first-year student in the Historical Archaeology master’s program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She graduated from Wake Forest University in the spring of 2024 with majors in Anthropology and History and a minor in Jewish Studies. While at Wake, she worked in archaeological laboratories and conducted projects ranging from ceramics to faunal materials. At UMB, she is researching the faunal remains at Sylvester Manor, where she is particularly interested in gathering data regarding the cattle that were raised, lived, and died on the property.
Alumni
Catriona Parker (2024)
Erica Lang (2023)
Naomh Fairweather (2023)
John Crawmer (2023)
Lissa Herzing (2021)
Jared Meuhlbauer (2021)
Dania Jordan (2021)
Links to Our Partners
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