Historical Archaeology

Jordon Loucks is a Ph.D student at SUNY Albany and works at the Museum to conduct research for his doctoral program.

Jordon's research is focused on early 19th century immigrants in the Northeast United States, with a particular emphasis on Irish immigrants. "A typical day for me at the Museum involves a lot of reading and writing because I'm currently working on my dissertation," says Jordon. "But I also get the opportunity to work in the anthropology collections where the Museum has thousands of artifacts that play a critical role in my research."

Many of the artifacts are broken pieces of various pottery, glass, or metal objects. Jordon's work involves trying to determine the history behind various artifacts, like which immigrant population may have used a particular piece or what time period an artifact dates to. "It's a difficult job, but I enjoy the challenge of researching a piece of pottery to find out if it may have belonged to an Irish immigrant who arrived in New York in the early 1800s."

Jordon anticipates completing his Ph.D. program in May 2016 and plans to pursue a career as a university professor or a museum curator.

"I highly recommend the fellowship program at the Museum," he says. "I've enjoyed the freedom to conduct research that's interesting to me and utilize the Museum's impressive collections to conduct that research."