Specialization

• Landscape Archaeology
• Wetlands, Marshes, and Cultural Ecology
• Middle East, Climate Change, and Civilizations
  
• Urban Sustainability

Teaching

• ENVR 790A/795: MEERM-AWNES Internship Preparation
  
• ENVR 790B/796: MEERM-AWNES Internships
  
• ENVR 590: Environmental Science Senior Capstone
  
• ENVR 499 (Undergraduate Research)
  
• ENVR 331: Integrating Sustainability
  
• COLA 298: Capstone Abroad 2011: Water and Life in the Middle East
• ENVR 101: Introduction to the Environment

Research

Summary: Millennial-scale urban sustainability and complex societies, studied through: landscape archaeology, anthropological archaeology, archaeology of the Middle East, cultural ecology, historical ecology, as they relate to wetland environments. Interpreting and relating air photography and satellite imagery to other paleoenvironmental data, toward reconstructing past landscapes.

My research focuses on the environmental dimensions of social and cultural change in wetland environments, especially regarding urban origins and sustainability in deltaic settings. Currently, I am investigating the possibility and efficacy of using constructed wetlands to remediate petroleum production, agricultural, and urban wastewater streams in southern Iraq. Future work will study past and present strategies for biomass energy extraction from natural environments.

Past experience includes arms control, information technology, and training consultancy in Europe and the Middle East, and fieldwork in Malaysia, Italy, southeastern Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, the Republic of Georgia, and Azerbaijan, including research financed by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, the University of California Office of Research, as an American School of Oriental Research Mesopotamian Fellow, and as a Visiting Research Fellow at the University College London - Qatar

Publications

2016
(With Carrie Hritz). “Resilient Landscapes: Riparian Evolution in the Wetlands of Southern Iraq.” In: New Agendas in Remote Sensing and Landscape Archaeology in the Near East, ed. by Dan Lawrence, Mark Altaweel, and Graham Philip. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

2015
(With Carrie Hritz). "Feeding History: Deltaic Resilience, Inherited Practice, and Millennial-Scale Sustainability in an Urbanized Landscape." In: Viewing the Future in the Past: Historical Ecology Applied to Environmental Issues, ed. by H. Thomas Foster II, David John Goldstein, and Lisa M. Paciulli. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

2014
(With Guillermo Algaze). “Travels in Edin: Deltaic Resilience and Early Urbanism in Greater Mesopotamia.” In: Preludes to Urbanism: Studies in the Late Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia in Honour of Joan Oates, ed. by H. Crawford, A. McMahon, and J. N. Postgate. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Wreck_Diving.jpg

(With Joe Porter). Ancient Assyrian Artifacts in Southern Iraq: The Search for the Winged Bull. Wreck Diving Magazine 33 (July).

2013
(With Hritz, C, and J. Smith. "Revisiting the Sealands: Report of Preliminary Ground Reconnaissance in ihe Hammar District, Dhi Qar and Basra Governorates, Iraq." Iraq 74: 37-49.

2012
"Physical Geography." In: The Sumerian World, ed. by H. Crawford. Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics. Oxford: Routledge. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 13–32. In press: October 29, 2012.

(With Hritz, C, and J. Smith.) 2012. "Mid-Holocene Dates for Organic-Rich Sediment, Palustrine Shell, and Charcoal, Southern Iraq." Radiocarbon 54(1): 65–79. Tucson: University of Arizona.

Selected Poems. In: Seven Strong: Winners of the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize, 2006–2012, ed. Kwame Dawes, with foreword by Marjory Wentworth. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

2011
Excavations: a City Cycle. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. 2010 Winner, South Carolina Poetry Initiative Book Prize.

2010
Outies. W. Columbia, SC: New Brookland Press. A work of environmental science fiction.

2009
(With Fletcher, M., D. Porter, H. Kelsey, V. Shervette, and D. Ramage). "A Southeast Regional Testbed for Integrating Complex Coastal and Ocean Information Systems." Proceedings of the Marine Technical Society/IEEE Conference on Marine Technology for our Future: Global and Local Challenges (OCEANS '09), Biloxi, Mississippi, 26-29 October 2009.

2007
From KLM to Corona: Using satellite photography toward a new understanding of 5th/4th millennium BC landscapes in southern Mesopotamia. In: Settlement and Society: Ecology, Urbanism, Trade and Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia, ed. by E. Stone UCLA: Cotsen Institute and Chicago: Oriental Institute.

2004
(With Guillermo Algaze). Climatic change, environmental change, and social change at Early Bronze Age Titriş Höyük: Can correlation and causation be untangled? In: From Villages to Cities: Early Villages in the Near East. Essays in Honor of Ufuk Esin, ed. by Mehmet Ozdogan. Istanbul: ASY.

2003
The Littoral Foundations of the Uruk State: Using satellite photography toward a new understanding of 5th/4th millennium BCE landscapes in the Warka Survey Area, Iraq. [Original Figures] In: Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Hydrostrategies. Papers held at the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Science 2001 Congress, Liège, ed. by D. Gheorghiu: 5–24. B.A.R. International Series 1123. Oxford: Archaeopress.

2001
Site-wide operations: The material foundations of Late EBA urbanization at Titriş. Titriş and its hinterland: The EBA landscape of the city. (With Guillermo Algaze and Timothy Matney) Conclusions. In: "Research at Titriş Höyük in southeastern Turkey: the 1999 season." Guillermo Algaze, Timothy Matney, et al. Anatolica 27 (2001): 23–106. Leiden: Netherlands Institute for the Near East.

In the Media - Print

• The Real Noah's Ark, by Blink Films. Broadcast by UK Channel 4, Shaw, PBS Nova ("Secrets of Noah's Ark"), France 5, and National Geographic International, 2015.
• In South Carolina, building a new generation of Iraqi faculty, by Alia Malek. Al Jazeera America, July 13, 2014 5 AM ET
• Can Iraq's lost marshes be restored? by Alia Malek. Al Jazeera America,July 13, 2014 5:00AM ET
• Against All Odds: Water From Oil Restoring Iraq’s Marshes by Fran Gillespie. Gulf Times 6 June 2014.
• USC experiments with new option for research funds, by Thad Moore. Daily Gamecock, 17 April 2104.
• Online crowdfunding offers alternatives for researchers needing smaller budgets, by April Blake. USC Today, 31 March 2104.
• Focus: Rule of Law. USC research professor Jennifer Pournelle leads other researchers through parts of the world experiencing political upheaval. U of SC President’s Report 2012.
• Lessons from Iraq: Urban marshes and city survival by Steven Powell. Science Daily 4 October 2012.
• Satellites expose 8,000 years of civilization. Virginia Gewin, Nature 19 March 2012
• Uncovering Civilization's Roots. Andrew Lawler, Science 335 (17 February 2012).
• Did the First Cities Grow from Marshes? Andrew Lawler. Science 331 (14 January 2011).
• Archaeologists Investigate Iraqi Marshes for Origins of Mesopotamian Cities. National Science Foundation, 31 March 2011. Includes Photo Gallery and videos.
• (With Carrie Hritz) Archaeologists explore Iraqi marshes for origins of urbanization. Science Daily 31 March 2011.
• Ancient Cities Sprang from Marshes by USC Media Relations. USC News, 22 February 2010. (Includes video).