Meet the team

Maureen is Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of York. Her research focuses primarily on Roman death and burial, in particular on funerary epigraphy, clothing and identity in funerary contexts, and on the burial of children. She is Principle Investigator and responsible for the coordination of the project and the supervision of the post-doctoral researcher in archaeological textiles. Her particular interest is the contextualisation of the Yorkshire gypsum burials in wider trends in funerary ritual and material culture in the Mediterranean and Europe.

Michelle Alexander is a Professor of Bioarchaeology in BioArCh, Department of Archaeology at the University of York. Her research involves the application of biomolecular techniques, particularly multi-isotopic analysis, to human, plant, and animal remains from past societies to explore dietary practices, agricultural and animal husbandry practices, and aquatic resource exploitation. She is particularly interested in the historical periods and times of societal change and has worked on material from the UK, the western Mediterranean and East Africa. She has oversight of the bioarchaeological element of the project, working closely with the post-doctoral researcher in bioarchaeology.

Dr Jackie Mosely is Seeing the Dead project CoI, and the Academic lead for York’s Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry. Her research centres on developing advanced mass spectrometry and ion mobility separation for non-targeted analyses of complex mixtures, with particular interest in seeking analytical solutions for mixtures comprising a plethora of molecule classes from environmental and societal sources.

Andrew Beeby is Professor of Chemistry at Durham University. He mainly focuses on Photochemistry, Crystallography, Optics, Molecule and Raman spectroscopy. He co-founded the internationally recognised Team Pigment, a cross-faculty team investigating the materials used in the illumination and production of manuscripts dating to the 6th to 18th centuries in the British Isles and northern Europe. With Jackie Mosely, Andrew will work on detecting organic residues, such as botanicals, unguents, dyes, or chemicals on the gypsum casings.

Tom is a Senior Research Laboratory Scientist in the Skoglund Ancient Genomics Laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute. He has over ten years experience working on the biomolecular analysis of ancient human remains, particularly ancient DNA. Tom's research has primarily been focussed on human remains from Britain where he has applied ancient DNA to questions of demography, migration, mobility and the interplay between genetic relationships and funerary treatment at different periods in British history and prehistory, with a particular emphasis on synthesising the genetic anc archaeological data.

Dave is a curator with Wakefield Museums & Castles and will assist the project in accessing material held in WM&C's collections. WM&C collects, safeguards and makes accessible objects that record the social and cultural history of the Wakefield district from prehistory to present day. We want residents and visitors to the district to explore our object collection and historic sites for inspiration, learning, and enjoyment. We are keen to develop new methods of access and participation, particularly to our stored object collection.

Dr Laura Fitton is a Senior lecturer in Anatomy at Hull York Medical School and the Department of Archaeology, University of York. She has over 15 years of experience working with various imaging modalities, including X-ray and CT scanning and 3D printing, and is a specialist in 3D virtual modelling. Dr Fitton will be involved in the medical imaging of the gypsum casings and the 3D reconstruction and printing of any artefacts discovered.

Patrick Gibbs is Head of Technology at Heritage360, a digital research and services centre at the University of York. His expertise ranges from web design and mobile technologies through to 3D capture/visualisation, digital design and coding. His role on the project is to facilitate the 3D capture and analysis of gypsum burial fragments via structured light scanning, and to create and maintain the project's website.

Dr Lara González Carretero is a lecturer in archaeobotany at University of York. She has extensive experience in environmental archaeology and the study of archaeological plant remains from both urban and rural sites in different areas of the world. She is an expert on microscopic analysis, in particular Digital and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Her research in this project focuses on SEM application to explore the presence of microbotanical and parasite remains.

Kevin Hayward is an ancient building materials specialist analysing the fabric of mortar, stone and ceramic building material. He has 20 years experience in this subject area, including the thin section and geochemical analysis of gypsum mortar in Spain. His Seeing the Dead project role will focus on the geochemical and petrographic character of the gypsum casing of the sarcophagi.

Malin Holst is a Senior Lecturer in Osteoarchaeology at the University of York and the managing director of York Osteoarchaeology, a company that specialises in the excavation, analysis and reporting of human remains. Malin has worked in commercial archaeology since 1987 and has analysed human remains from the Neolithic to the modern day, with a key interest in skeletal trauma, childhood stress and burial rituals. Malin will be excavating the sarcophagi and osteologically analysing the skeletal remains as part of this project.

Sarah is an archaeologist who specialises in both textiles and textile processing implements. Although her work primarily focuses on Nubian and Egyptian material, she has also worked on 19th century coffin textiles from Liverpool. Sarah has mostly worked with material dating from the Meroitic to the Ottoman periods. However, her most recent research has focussed on textile impressions from the back of clay sealings from the Old Kingdom site of Heit el Ghurab, Egypt. Her research interests include fibre identification, spinning technology, changes in textile production over an extended period of time, and the life-cycle of textiles through their use, re-use, recycling, and eventual discard. She has excavated in Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the UK. She holds a PhD in Egyptology (2023) from the University of Liverpool.

Kelly Hunter is the Post-Exacavation Manager at MAP and has worked as a commercial archaeologist since 1990.

Corrie Hyland is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Stable Isotopes at the University of York. Her research reconstructs the life histories of individuals and studies ancient human-animal relationships using stable isotope analyses and radiocarbon dating. Corrie’s previous research experience spans diverse contexts from Canadian Arctic hunter-gatherers, early state-level societies along Peru’s northern coast, and hunter-gatherer populations surrounding Lake Baikal. Working closely with Michelle Alexander, Corrie will be analyzing human remains from gypsum burials using a comprehensive suite of isotopic techniques (carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, oxygen, and strontium, plus amino acid compound specific carbon and nitrogen) to reconstruct detailed dietary patterns and identify potential non-locals.

Dr Mik Lisowski is a zooarchaeologist and a stable isotope specialist at the University of York, with a particular interest in applying zooarchaeological and isotopic methods to investigate religion and ethnicity in the past. Mik also is responsible for teaching practical zooarchaeology and he serves as a zooarchaeological consultant for the Seeing the Dead research project.

James Osborn is the Digital Technology Specialist at Heritage360, a digital research and services centre at the University of York. He started his career as an archaeologist after studying at Bournemouth University. After completing further studies at the University of York he specialised in 3D visualisation. James is interested in how 3D capture/visualisation can be used as an analytical tool by academics and practitioners.

Adam Parker is the Curator of Archaeology at York Museums Trust. He has fourteen years experience of curating, caring, and advocating for the designated archaeology collection of the Yorkshire Museum. He is an Honorary Research Fellow in Classical Studies at the Open University and an Associate member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeology. His role on the project is to facilitate access to the gypsum casts in the collections of York Museums Trust whilst ensuring good museological practice in their storage, handling, and use throughout.

Peter Robinson is Curator of Archaeology at Heritage Doncaster (City of Doncaster Council). He has a previous background in Field Achaeology and 25 years experience as a Museum professional with an expertise in Archaeological curation and the Archaeology of the Borough of Doncaster and adjoining areas. Peter has worked at Heritage Doncaster since 2001, where he is responsible for curating, promoting and providing access to the collection. His role on the project is to facilitate access to the Pollington Gypsum Cast Burial and associated material in line with best practice and procedures and to lead on the creation of an end of project temporary exhbition focussed on the Pollington Gypsum Cast Burial in the context of the wider project.

Pontus is Group Leader of the Skoglund Ancient Genomics Laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute. He is currently running a Wellcome Trust-funded project which aims to generate whole genomes from at least 1000 people who lived in Britain over the last 10,000 years to investigate population history and recent natural selection at the genome level. His lab has used ancient DNA to pioneer research into the origin and evolution of dogs and their wild ancestors, reconstructing the fine-scale ancestry of ancient individuals, identifying ancient individuals who had chromsomal aneuploidies as well as investigating occurrence and evolution of infectious pathogens.

Jennifer is a postdoctoral researcher. Her research focuses on organic chemical analysis. Previous research focused on conservation of archaeological wood and wool as part of the Saving Oseberg and TexRec projects, both researching the collection from the Viking Age Oseberg ship burial. These investigated natural polymers for archaeological conservation. The TexRec project also included dye analysis of the Oseberg tapestries using mass spectrometry. The other previous research she worked on involved analysis of ancient Egyptian mummy tissue, to determine embalming materials and the source of bitumen, using mass spectrometry. Jennifer’s interests lie in the application of analytical chemistry for archaeology, archaeological conservation and drug discovery. On the Seeing the Dead project she will be investigating organic residues within the burials and conducting dye analysis of remnants of textiles using mass spectrometry and Raman analysis.