Ken Seligson
President and Membership Coordinator, AIA-LA Society
Affiliation: California State University, Dominguez Hills, Department of Anthropology
https://kenseligson.wordpress.com/
Research Interests: human-environment relationships in the Northern Maya Lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
Charlie Steinmetz
Vice President, AIA-LA Society
Charles W. Steinmetz is a real estate investor and President of the Steinmetz Foundation that makes grants to literacy and curiosity building educational non-profits in Southern California.
John Cameron
Treasurer, AIA – LA Society
John earned a master’s degree in business administration from USC in 1971 and then a certified public accountant (CPA) license five years later. John is best known as the genial treasurer of AIA-LA who helps keep our programs running smoothly.
Dawn Cox
Public Education Liaison, AIA – LA Society
Eighth grade U.S History teacher in the Los Angeles area.
Dawn currently works at Lynwood Middle School. She received her doctorate in Educational Leadership and Management in 2013 from Alliant International University. A love for history and archaeology led to her studying abroad in Florence, Italy. In 2003 she was awarded a teaching fellowship through the conservation group Earthwatch.
Jason de León
Board Member and Liaison to Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
Affiliation: UCLA, Professor, Lloyd E. Cotsen Endowed Chair of Archaeology, Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology (https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/jason-de-leon/)
Violence; materiality; Latino migration; masculinity, archaeology of the contemporary; photoethnography, public anthropology
Lara Fabian
Board member and Liaison to UCLA
Affiliation: UCLA, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Assistant Professor of Iranian Archaeology; Director of Undergraduate Studies
https://nelc.ucla.edu/person/lara-fabian/
Research Interests: Iron Age through Sasanian Iran and Southwest Asia, Mobile pastoralist/sedentary relationships, The South Caucasus (archaeology, history, and historiography), Landscape archaeology, Economic history, Numismatics, Historiography of archaeology, with a focus on Russsophone traditions
Sydney Powell
Undergraduate Student Liaison, AIA – LA Society
Affiliation: University of Southern California
Sydney Powell is an Archaeology and Jewish Studies double major at USC. She is interested in researching women’s menstrual cycles in the archaeological record, as well as the role of women’s leadership in Christian spaces over time. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, learning Hebrew, and finding new activities to do in the LA area.
Karla Saracay
Graduate Student Liaison, AIA – LA Society
Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
Karla earned her BA in Anthropology from UC Berkeley in 2021. She worked at the McCown Archaeobotany Laboratory from 2018-2022 working with the Upper Mantaro Archaeological Research Project’s (UMARP) legacy collection. Her BA thesis was focused on households and artifact distributions at the site of Umpamalka in Peru utilizing the data from the UMARP collections. Since then she has worked in environmental conservation, cultural resource management, and archaeological field school instruction. She has done work in the United States and South America but is now shifting her focus to California historic archaeology.
Aaron A. Burke
Board Member and Past President, AIA-LA Society
Affiliation: UCLA, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (https://nelc.ucla.edu/person/aaron-burke/ – https://ucla.academia.edu/AaronBurke)
Research interests: Warfare, migration, environmental change, and social change in the ancient Near East during the Bronze and Iron Ages
Paul Scotton
Board Member AIA – LA Society and past president.
Affiliation: California State University, Long Beach. Program in Classics.
Research Interests: Paul is Co-Director of the Lechaion Harbor and Settlement Land Project in the Corinthia, Greece. He has been active in the excavation of multiple sites in Greece for over thirty years.
Owen Doonan
Ex Officio Member, Past President. Professor of Art History at CSUN, AIA – LA Society
Prof. Doonan received his B.A. (1986) and M.A. (1989) degrees in Classics and Classical Archaeology at Tufts University, and his Ph.D. in Old World Archaeology from Brown University (1993). Professor Doonan began his teaching career in the Archaeology Department of Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey (1992-1995). Since 2003, he has taught ancient Art History and Archaeology at California State University Northridge.
Professor Doonan has served as President and Vice President of the L.A. County Society of the AIA, chairs the AIA’s Eastern Europe and Eurasia Interest Group, was recognized as the AIA’s G.M.A. Hanfmann Lecturer (2016-2017), and serves on the AIA Fellowships Committee. An active field archaeologist, he has also excavated in Italy, Greece, Spain, and Israel. Author of more than 50 books and articles, Professor Doonan has been awarded grants from the NEH, National Geographic Society, the Getty Foundation, and the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung for his research. He is particularly interested in public outreach and proactive engagement with the Turkish-American community in North America and with our host community of Sinop, Turkey.
Email me: owen.doonan@csun.edu
