IUP’s Applied Archaeology Master’s program produces a lot of graduates who go on to be successful in the field of archaeology, and Mikala Hardie is no different. I reached out to her to get an update on what her thesis was and what she is doing after graduation to share some of the things IUP graduates do with their degrees. Mikala said:

“My thesis was focused on doing a ground penetrating radar and gradiometer survey on Goucher College’s campus to try and find remnants of the enslaved communities’ housing structures. I was able to ground truth features related to two buildings but there was no evidence linking them to the enslaved community. My first job after grad school was field teching for EDR. I actually defended my thesis in a hotel room while I was doing a project with them. After that, I went to probably my favorite job post-grad which was for Phillips Academy Summer Session where I led a group of middle-schoolers through a formal excavation of the old president’s house on their campus. It was so fun to work with a community of young archaeologists and learn how to teach them in both a classroom and field setting. After that, I was hired by Baltimore Community Archaeology Lab out of Towson University to be their project manager. Two undergrads and I worked on a Phase I survey of a local urban park that has been occupied since 9500 B.C.E.. I also got to revisit the skills I learned for my thesis by doing a few GPR surveys both in the urban park and in other parks around the area. That was a temporary position as well but during it I got to meet someone who recruited me for my current, permanent job as a staff archaeologist at Chronicle Heritage (formerly PaleoWest and Commonwealth). This job is a combination of fieldwork and report writing and I really like it so far!”

It sounds like she has been able to accomplish quite a few things since graduation. Mikala provided a great example of some of the things you can do after graduating from IUP. Thank you Mikala!