Katherine A. Dungan

Katherine Dungan joined the staff as a research assistant in 2008, working with ceramics from Archaeology Southwest’s excavations and collections research in the Upper Gila River Valley of New Mexico. Her dissertation research expanded Archaeology Southwest’s Upper Gila work backward in time to the 13^th and early 14^th centuries, and she served as Field Director for the Archaeology Southwest/University of Arizona Preservation Archaeology field schools in Mule Creek in 2011 and 2012. Her work in the Upper Gila and Mogollon Highlands regions of New Mexico focuses on religious architecture and its role in the creation of cultural boundaries.

Katherine completed her M.A. (2009) and Ph.D. (2015) in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Her Master’s thesis examined intervisibility between great houses, shrines, and small sites at the community surrounding a Chacoan outlier. She is currently expanding on this work as a member of the Chaco Social Networks project. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology and a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the University of Michigan.

Katherine received several prestigious grants and fellowships during her graduate career. Most recently, her Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant proposal was recommended for National Science Foundation funding, and the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) bestowed on her the Fred Plog Memorial Fellowship.