Hear from our students

Featured teaching staff

Our incredible teaching and research staff within the Archaeology sector are experts in their professions and well-connected to industry.

Associate Professor Maritime Archaeology: 
Dr Wendy van Duivenvoorde

Growing up in the Netherlands, a nation famed for its maritime heritage, Wendy van Duivenvoorde became fixated on the sea. Drawn to archaeology at university, she jumped at the opportunity to volunteer on dives at maritime archaeological sites, sealing her fate as a scholar captivated by the histories of the deep. 

Dr van Duivenvoorde came to Australia to be involved in the study of the Batavia, a Dutch East India Company vessel built in Amsterdam that was wrecked on its maiden voyage on the West Australian coast, at a time when the waters of the southern hemisphere were largely uncharted – and 150 years before Captain Cook mapped Australia’s eastern coastline. The loss of the Batavia and the trail of mutiny and murder that followed the disaster fostered huge interest in the excavation of the wreck after it was rediscovered in 1963.

Associate Professor Space Archaeology: 
Dr Alice Gorman

Dr Alice Gorman is an internationally recognised leader in the field of space archaeology. Her research on space exploration has been featured in magazines such as National Geographic and New Scientist. She is a faculty member of the International Space University's Southern Hemisphere Space Program in Adelaide and tweets as @drspacejunk.

Alice has worked extensively in Indigenous heritage management, providing advice for mining industry, urban development, government departments, local councils and Native Title groups in NSW, WA, SA and Queensland. She is also a specialist in stone tool analysis, and the Aboriginal use of bottle glass after European settlement.

Associate Professor of Archaeological Science:
Dr Ian Moffat

Dr Ian Moffat is an archaeological scientist who mainly works with geological techniques. His principal research focus is examining the effect of climate variation on human evolution based on sediments from archaeological rock shelter sites in South Africa, Indonesia and Australia. Applying methods including geophysics, sediment analysis and isotope geochemistry, he is developing new climate proxies and understanding the depositional history of these sites.

A related area of interest is the isotopic and trace element analysis of biogenic materials (including tooth, bone and otoliths) to examine mobility, diet, maternal behaviour and climate. This includes the analysis of the mobility of animals in Palaeolithic France and Israel, the maternal behaviour of early hominins and the diet and mobility of colonial era migrants in Adelaide, using recent developments in the field of laser ablation analysis to undertake spatially resolved in-situ measurements.

Professor of Indigenous Archaeology:
Dr Claire Smith

Claire Smith is an anthropological archaeologist who works primarily with Indigenous communities. She analyses rock art, statues, monuments and memorials, graves, modern material culture, and social media. She has undertaken archaeological, ethnoarchaeological and anthropological research with Australian Aboriginal communities in the Barunga region, Northern Territory, every year since 1990 and with Ngadjuri people in South Australia since 1998.

As the twice-elected President of the World Archaeological Congress (2003-2014), Claire is committed to intellectually enriching academia by strengthening the global impact of research by scholars from low-income countries.