Director Contact Info sepbirch@uga.edu Office: Geography-Geology 103 Baldwin Hall, 265A Lab office: Geography-Geology 3AS/318 I am an associate professor with a joint appointment in the departments of Anthropology and Geography. I am the director of the Quaternary Isotope Paleoecology Laboratory as well as the Center for Archaeological Sciences. I coordinate the internship program of the Georgia Museum of Natural History, where I am also an adjunct curator of zooarchaeology. My academic research is focused on human adaptation and resilience to climate change and natural resource unpredictability in prehistory, and how our understanding of past human response to environmental change informs current thinking about these issues. I combine archaeology and biogeochemistry to investigate changes in diet, mobility, and settlement systems in the period spanning the end of the last ice age to the arrival of farming. I am an active advocate of open access publishing and online data and research sharing and am co-editor-in-chief of the journal Open Quaternary. I also co-founded and moderate the blog TrowelBlazers, which highlights women in the fields of archaeology, paleontology, and geology. My other research interests include the initial domestication of livestock, diffusion of domesticates across Eurasia, the transition from hunting to herding, seasonality and human mobility, multispecies archaeology, and advancing methodologies in zooarchaeology and stable isotope analysis. Questions? Get in touch!Email: sepbirch [at] uga.edu Education: PhD, Archaeology, University of Cambridge, 2012MPhil, Archaeological Science, University of Cambridge, 2009B.Sc., Evolutionary Anthropology, Rutgers University, 2008 Other Affiliations: Georgia Museum of Natural History Internship Program Center for Archaeological Sciences Coordinator Research Research Interests: Zooarchaeology Stable isotope analysis Climate change Paleoenvironmental reconstruction Paleozoogeography Human paleoecology Hunter-gatherer mobility and subsistence Mesolithic/Neolithic transition Balkan, Adriatic, Mediterranean, and Southwest Asian archaeology Women in archaeology Digital archaeology Open access publication/open data Grants: [12] National Science Foundation. "Disciplinary Improvements for Past Global Change Research: Connecting Data Systems and Practitioners" Co-PI with Jessica Blois et al. ($202,636 to Emery, LeFebvre, and Pilaar Birch) 2023-2026 [11] National Science Foundation. "Ancient Agrarian Responses to Environmental Stress across the Mediterranean, Levant to Sardinia” Co-PI with Patricia Fall and Steven Falconer et al. (total awarded $189,763; $55,377 to Pilaar Birch) 2021-2023 [10] National Science Foundation. “Neotoma Paleoecology Database, a Multi-Proxy, International, Community-Curated Data Resource for Global Change Research” Co-PI with Jack Williams et al. ($53,989 to Pilaar Birch) [9] National Science Foundation. “Climate change and agrarian responses during the collapse and reemergence of Bronze Age urbanism in the Southern Levant” Co-PI with Steven Falconer and Patricia Fall (total awarded $189,111; $67,699 to Pilaar Birch) 2019-2022 [8] University of Georgia Office of Experiential Learning. Innovation Grant. “Revamping the Georgia Museum of Natural History Internship Program” PI ($26,720) 2018-2020 [7] The Funk Foundation. “Passenger Pigeon Exploitation during the Holocene in New York State.” PI ($2,500) 2018-2019 [6] Arts and Humanities Research Council UK. “Radical Death and Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East” Co-PI (total awarded £550,000; $36,948 to Pilaar Birch) 2018-2022 [5] University of Georgia Research Foundation. Faculty Research Grant. “Archaeologically-Linked Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction” PI ($10,000) 2016-2017 [4] Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Connection Grant. “Reconstructing Hunter-Gatherer Mobility: Building New Inter-disciplinary Frameworks in the Quaternary” Co-PI with Julien Riel Salvatore and Rebecca Wragg Sykes ($15,612 CAD) 2015-2016 [3] UGA STEM Initiative Small Grants Program. “Enhancing and Diversifying Geosciences Instruction through Popular Gaming Platforms and Multi-user Virtual Environments (MUVES)” Co-PI with Marshall Shepherd, Jerry Shannon, and Thomas Mote ($8,000) 2015 [2] International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) Project Grant. “Reconstructing Hunter-Gatherer Mobility: Building New Inter-disciplinary Frameworks in the Quaternary” Co-PI with Rebecca Wragg Sykes and Julien Riel Salvatore (€4,000) 2015-2016 [1] National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration. “Neolithization of Europe: New Zooarchaeological and Stable Isotope Evidence from Uğurlu Höyük, Gökçeada, Turkey” Co-PI with Levent Atici ($22,000) 2015-2016 Personal Website: Google Scholar Page Center for Archaeological Sciences Georgia Museum of Natural History Internship
