The Department of the Classics is pleased to welcome assistant professor Brett Kaufman, who will be joining the department on August 16, 2018. Professor Kaufman holds a Ph.D. in Archaeology from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology in UCLA (2014). He has held a Postdoctoral appointment at the Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University and is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Science and Technology Beijing at the School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering and the Institute of Culture Heritage and History of Science and Technology. Professor Kaufman’s research focuses on the history and archaeology of Mediterranean peoples and the history of science. He is a specialist in ancient metallurgy and engineering, ecology and paleoindustry research and in the history and archaeology of North Africa (Tunisia) and the Levant (Israel). He serves as the Principal Investigator and CoDirector of the Zita Project in Tunisia. Professor Kaufman has a wide array of publications, co-authored articles in top-ranked peer-reviewed journals (American Journal of Archaeology, Archaeometry, Journal of Archaeological Science), book chapters and a co-authored book, Metallurgy and Design: from Prehistory to the Space Age (under contract with the German Press Springer). His research has been supported by grants by the NSF and the National Geographic Society. Professor Kaufman has taught a wide array of innovative courses that blend his interest in material culture, ecology, and science both at Brown University and in Beijing. In addition to the numerous national and international conferences and panels which Professor Kaufman has organized and presented in, his network of research collaborations is international and geographically diverse (Belgium, China, Israel, Kenya, Tunisia, Israel).