Dr Colleen Morgan
Senior Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage

Profile

Biography

Press inquiries: I am happy to respond to press inquiries regarding digital archaeology and heritage. Please send all other media inquiries to pressoffice@york.ac.uk.

Colleen is the Senior Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. She is the Director of the Digital Archaeology and Heritage Lab, the MSc in Digital Archaeology and the MSc in Digital Heritage. She was Marie Curie Experienced Researcher for the EUROTAST project from 2013-2015 and a postdoctoral fellow for the Centre for Digital Heritage from 2015-2017. 

Colleen has an established international reputation as a leading scholar in critical digital archaeology and heritage. Her research contributions fall in three main areas: 1) bringing digital archaeology into conversation with current theory drawn from feminist, queer, posthuman, and anarchist approaches 2) multisensorial interventions and digital embodiment, with a focus on avatars of past people created from bioarchaeological data 3) issues surrounding craft, enskillment and pedagogy in analogue and digital methods in field archaeology, including photography, videography, and drawing.

Colleen is involved with several large research projects in the UK and EU. She is currently the PI on the UKRI-AHRC funded OTHER EYES project which confronts an emerging issue within archaeology: that of interpreting past people using digital technology. She is collaborating with York Museums Trust and interactive digital media specialists BetaJester and a large team of diverse researchers to create avatars based on Romano-British era human remains found in York. She is the Co-I of The Avebury Papers with Professor Mark Gillings of Bournemouth University to creatively investigate the extensive personal and archaeological archive at Avebury. She directs archaeological excavations at the Hili Archaeological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the United Arab Emirates with the Department of Culture and Tourism. Other projects include TETRARCHS, the Aide Memoire Project, Cults of the Head?, and BOCCAHD.

 She is the author of over 25 peer-reviewed papers, has given 6 keynote lectures, has presented films at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, California and the International Museum for Contemporary Sculpture in Santo Tirso, Portugal, contributed to photography exhibitions, built virtual worlds and blogs at: colleen-morgan.com.

Key research interests

• Creative digital archaeology
• Digital embodiment of past people
• Digital and analogue media creation in archaeological knowledge production
• Sustainable approaches to digital technology
• Immersive storytelling, mixed reality, virtual reality and telepresence
• Cyborgs and robots in archaeology 

Departmental roles

Director of the Digital Archaeology and Heritage Lab (DAH Lab)

Director of the Centre for Digital Heritage

Digital Archaeology Director of Studies

Digital Heritage Director of Studies

Chair of Athena SWAN

University roles

YorRobots Executive Committee

Open Research Advocate

Research

Overview

My research is on critical, theory-based, digital archaeology. I am particularly interested in avatars, embodiment, bioarchaeological life histories and immersive experiences. I also enjoy creative, playful collaborations with archaeologists and other colleagues. 

I have conducted archaeological fieldwork on three continents, but now focus on the Arabian Gulf. 

Projects

I am the PI of Other Eyes, an AHRC Funded project that aims to better understand and transmit the experiences of past people using virtual embodiment and immersive technologies. My CO-PIs are Michelle Alexander and Guy Schofield and project partners include Stuart Eve, BetaJester, the Archaeology Data Service and the Yorkshire Museum.

I am a co-investigator on the Aide Memoire Project which investigates the intersections of analogue and digital methods of recording archaeology.

TETRARCHS - I am associated with the TETRARCHS project to transform data re-use in archaeology.

The Avebury Papers - I am a co-investigator on the Avebury Papers, a four-year Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project to develop, explore, and digitise the multimedia archive of Avebury’s Neolithic origins and its subsequent life-history.

Supervision

Colleen is happy to discuss the design and funding of potential PhD or post-doctoral research projects on the themes of critical digital archaeology, feminist posthumanism, queer, punk, and anarchist archaeologies and heritage, and artistic or creative approaches to archaeological practice. 

Current PhD Students

Leila Araar

Owen Hurcum

Maki Wardle

Completed PhD Students

Kirsty Ryder (co-supervised with Jon Finch)

Despoina Sampatakou

Tondi Siregar

Christopher Wakefield

Estelle Praet (co-supervised with John Schofield)

Previous MRes Students

Paul Docherty (with Beta Jester; XR Stories)

Teaching

Undergraduate

Archaeogaming (Year 2)

Postgraduate

Digital Creativity