The project personnel of NOMAD Science is composed of a core of experts and professionals from a variety of disciplines. Additionally, we host guest staff members that bring unique perspectives to our expert team.
Dr. Julia Clark
Director
Board of Directors
Julia is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in the investigation of human-environment and human-animal relationships, risk management strategies in marginal environments, and socio-political organization. Dr. Clark utilizes a range of methods in her research, including GIS analysis, predictive modeling, survey, excavation, ethnoarchaeology, experimental archaeology, and zooarchaeology. Her main area of field research is Mongolia and the Eurasian Steppe where she has been working since 2007. Dr. Clark also holds positions with Utah State University in Logan, Utah, USA and Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.
Dr. J Bayarsaikhan
Co-Director
Board of Directors
Bayarsaikhan is the Director of Research at the National Museum of Mongolia. He specializes in understanding deer stones and monumental archaeology in Mongolia. He has partnered with Dr. Clark’s work in northern Mongolia since 2009, and continues his commitment to the NOMAD Science project today.
G. Ariunzul
Guide, Translator, Project Leader
Ari has extensive experience in media and communication, and nonprofit field work as a journalist, communication and program specialist at local and international organizations in Mongolia. She has also worked as a translator and facilitator for Nomad Science on several different projects. She is passionate about the role of communication in programs focusing on creating social and behavior change through awareness raising and environmental education. She holds a M.A degree in Communication for Development and Social Change from Temple University in Philadelphia, USA. Ariunzul currently works for a NGO based in Mongolia focusing on the support and education of national parks, park rangers and the communities around those national parks. Her passion for these parks and the people who reside in and around them make her an essential member of our team.
Ch. Baynaa
Project Assistant
Baynaa is an archaeologist, researcher, and skilled photograher at the National Museum of Mongolia who has been participating in archaeologicla research in Mongolia for many years.
Dr. Stefani Crabtree
Co-Director
Board of Directors
Stefani began working in Mongolia in 2012, and is currently at Utah State University and the Santa Fe Institute. Dr. Crabtree specializes in computational modeling and quantitative analysis of archaeological materials. A collaborator on many projects, Dr. Crabtree was drawn to working in Mongolia for the opportunities that working in a relatively understudied region would provide. When not working in Mongolia she primarily works in the American Southwest, studying the Ancestral Pueblo people, but she has also worked in southern France, and is beginning work in the Tibetan Plateau.
R. Erdenetsetseg
Conservator
Erdenetsetseg has been working in the field of preservation and restoration of archaeological finds since 2002. She has participated in professional courses on cultural heritage preservation and has done laboratory practice numerous times at research institutes in the Republic of Korea and the United States. She has experience in restoring about 600 metal artifacts found in ancient nomadic burial sites from all over Mongolia.
Jennifer M. Farquhar
Lithics Specialist and Project Assistant
Jennifer studies the development of pastoralism in Mongolia with an emphasis on mobility and land use patterns among foragers and early herders during the Neolithic-Bronze Age Transition (ca. 4500 years ago). Her research draws from on-going archaeological and geoarchaeological work carried out at the Ikh Nart Nature Reserve in the Dornogovi, where she has worked since 2013. Her research in Mongolia represents the culmination of over 25 years of academic interest and technical experience in prehistoric human-environment interactions, land-use strategies, and technology. Since 1990, she has worked as an archaeologist designing and directing studies for cultural resource management projects throughout California and the North American Great Basin. During her tenure in resource management, she taught classes in prehistoric lithic technology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and served on the Executive Board of the Society for California Archaeology (President and Northern California Vice-President). She is also an owner and Principal Archaeologist at Albion Environmental. Inc. in Santa Cruz, California.
Trenton Harper
Wilderness Medicine Instructor
Trenton is a Critical Care Paramedic and a senior staff member with Aerie Backcountry Medicine based in Missoula, Montana. He brings over 10 years of experience providing professional level training in wilderness emergency medical response to students preparing for travel and work in remote regions. He is a passionate educator with a strong interest in the traditional survival skills of land-based peoples.
Ryan Kertanis
Guide, Instructor, Project Leader
Ryan is a professional guide and horseman who has lived and worked in Mongolia for the past 6 years. Guiding in both Wyoming and Mongolia, he has learned and practiced the skills of both western and Mongolian horsemen. His studies in both anthropology and environmental science have led to a passion for studying traditional skills in remote environments. He has guided some of the longest horse trekking expeditions in Mongolia namely the 700 km Gobi Gallop and the 3,600 km Blue Wolf Totem Expedition. Time spent in these remote locations has grown Ryan’s passion for both survival skills and horsemanship and shown him the absolute necessity of medical training in the backcountry. With gratitude for the Taiga and its people Ryans goal is to facilitate the passing on of the knowledge and skills learned there to all who have a passion for wild places, skilled people and unique cultures.
Robin Koch
Positioning Specialist
Robin is an adjunct lecturer at Flinders University in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (Archaeology). Graduating in 1972 he has extensive experience in all aspects of surveying:engineering, cadastral (land development), mining, aerial and hydrographic. He taught surveying at TAFE SA for 38 years.At Flinders University, he provides survey control for graduate student research projects and student field camps some of which include excavations. These projects include sites in Tasmania, Queensland (in collaboration with University of Queensland), South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. A major survey of Beacon Island (Batavia wreck) was conducted for The Maritime Museum of Western Australia. Surveys of indigenous include sites in South Australia, Northern Queensland and the Northern Territory. He has also worked on close offshore wreck sites and historic maritime infrastructure with Victoria Heritage.
Dr. Bryce Lowry
Project Assistant
Bryce is currently a researcher at the University of Chicago. He has worked at various locations on four continents, but the prehistory of Mongolia has occupied his focus for the last decade. His research interests include, space and place, political economy, lithic and ceramic analysis, as well as human osteology. Bryce also serves as the head photographer at the Oriental Institute Museum.
Dr. Bryan Miller
Collaborator
Bryan’s research incorporates textual analyses and material culture studies to investigate the dynamics of empires in early East Asia. In particular, his work on pastoral nomadic regimes challenges normative constructs of cultural politics, economic systems and sociopolitical institutions. He has conducted archaeological surveys and excavations in various regions of Mongolia since 2001, including Arkhangai, Khovd and Dornod province. His current book manuscript on the Xiongnu steppe empire integrates translations of Chinese documents with analyses of archaeological remains from China, Mongolia and Central Asia. The combined narrative of the world’s first nomadic empire fleshes out the complexities of the regime and demonstrates its lasting impact on the history of pre-modern Asia. The conceptual approaches developed for Dr. Miller’s book serve as the foundation for subsequent investigations of the conquest dynasties of early medieval Northern China as well as the Mongol Empire
Geophysics and Remote Sensing Specialist
Ian is an ARC DECRA Research Fellow in Archaeological Science at Flinders University (more here) and has been working with NOMAD Science since 2017. He is interested in all applications of earth science techniques to archaeology including, in particular, archaeological geophysics, isotope and trace element geochemistry, geomatics and geoarchaeology. He has contributed to a wide range of academic and consultancy projects within Australia and internationally including locating and mapping features such as historic and Indigenous graves, hearths, buried pottery, middens, shipwrecks, lost anchors and historic material culture, tracing migrations with isotope geochemistry and reconstructing palaeoenivronments using sedimentological techniques. In addition to his work in Mongolia, Dr. Moffat has active research projects in Australia, Indonesia, Greece, South Africa, Cambodia, France, Israel and Kiribati covering archaeologial material of Mid-Palaeolithic to WWII age.
B. Nasanchimeg
Translator and Project Assistant
Nasanchimeg is an Assistant Professor at the Mongolian State University of Culture and Arts. She has been working as an ethnographic translator and assistant for NOMAD science since 2017.
Y. Ochiroo
Ochiroo is a native of the Mongolian Taiga and an experienced horseman and guide. Ochiroo has worked with several foreign research teams including several previous NOMAD Science teams. He is a skilled naturalist and at home in both the Taiga and Steppe environments of northern Mongolia. Ochiroo is Tsaatan himself and his family herd horses, reindeer and yaks. He has a lifetime of experience in traditional Taiga skills and survival strategies. Ochiroo is joined by an experienced team of Tsaatan guides who have years of experience in their homeland.
Dr. William Taylor
Project Assistant
Dr. William Taylor is a recent graduate of the University of New Mexico, and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. His research investigates the role of horses in human societies, with an emphasis on understanding the environmental context of animal domestication.
T. Tuvshinjargal
Project Assistant
"Jerry" Tuvshinjargal is a zooarchaeologist and researcher at the Mongolian Institue of Archaeology.
Dr. Alicia R. Ventresca Miller
Co-Director and Head Bioarchaeologist
Board of Directors
Alicia's research utilizes bioanthropological, archaeological, and biochemical methods to investigate the evolution of human diets across Eurasia, human adaptations to semi-arid environments, and the impact of urbanization on health and disease. Her work explores the mechanisms behind human interactions which hinge on connecting genomic and biomolecular data, bridging this gap by tracking migrations, the spread of domesticates, and the dispersal of horse riding and dairying. Although focused on central and inner Asia, her research has global implications as it integrates science and anthropology to highlight the intersection of human mobility and disease transfer. Her work intercedes in narratives that consider steppe pastoralists inherently nomadic and lacking urbanization. Through isotopic, osteological, and proteomic datasets Alicia’s work provides direct evidence of human mobility, paleodiets, and health.
Morgan Windle
Zooarchaeologist
Morgan is a zooarchaeologist specializing in anthropological archaeology to explore human-animal relationships and domestication processes. Her research spans European prehistory in Germany and the UK, and ethnographic and archaeological work in Siberia, Finland, and Mongolia.
For her PhD at Kiel University under the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence, she investigated reindeer domestication and human-reindeer relationships in the Circumpolar North. Her work, developed in partnership with local reindeer herding communities in West Siberia and northwest Mongolia, integrates Indigenous Knowledge with ecological and multispecies perspectives with zooarchaeological and biomolecular methods.
Currently, Morgan’s research focuses on reindeer herding systems, human-animal interactions across Eurasia, and the role of hunter-gatherers in early herding in Mongolian prehistory.