Happy holidays! This week IUP students are gearing up for finals week, but I wanted to look back at what the Masters program students and professors have been up to this semester, Fall 2025.

Fifteen students joined the program in August and are now completing 3 classes. The two core classes are Pre-Contact North American Archaeology, taught by Dr. Lara Homsey-Messer, and Historical Archaeology, taught by Dr. Ben Ford. Students also took an elective class. The upper cohort took the core class of Cultural Resource Management II, chose an elective, and most used their thesis work as their third class. Each class teaches us skills for our careers as professional archaeologists, focusing on technical writing and presentations.

Ryan Devanny and Dr. Palmiotto presenting a poster at SEAC.

Students from both cohorts attended AGES department seminars on Fridays, learning about topics ranging from cryptozoology to Dr. Ford’s sabbatical work in Portugal (and got free pizza!).

Conferences were attended by students from the upper cohort: the SEAC conference in Louisiana and the ACRA conference in North Carolina. In Raleigh, the students attended two days of presentations and were also able to explore the city. They networked, meeting various professionals and attended a mentor lunch. In Baton Rouge, students and Dr. Palmiotto presented various posters on zooarchaeology work they’ve been doing. They also attended presentations and a reception at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum.

Dr. Lara published work on the Squirrel Hill site, and Dr. Palmiotto used her sabbatical to do zoological research and act as a forensic consultant.

We’re so excited to see what the new year will bring!

Department of Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences at IUP