Justine Benanty recently graduated from the B.A./M.A. five-year Anthropology program at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Her initial passion for archaeology was ignited when, as a child, when she traveled to the American Southwest to hunt for fossils with her father. Her academic and professional interests include classical, biblical, and maritime archaeology, museum studies focusing on archival research, collections management and computer simulation, and heritage and ethical anthropology.

Miss Benanty’s expertise in research and collections management has been gleaned from appointments at the Smithsonian Institution, British Museum, American Museum of Natural History, National Park Service, and Biblical Archaeology Review. She is a seasoned international traveler and has collaborated on field research in Israel, South Africa, Mongolia, China, France, Italy, UK, and in several states in the US. She has contributed to publications, including From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible, and was co-presenter at the 2010 annual meeting of Association of American Geographers for ‘Agent-Based Modeling of Inner Asian Pastoralists in a Historical Landscape.’ Most recently, Miss Benanty worked as the ceramics analyst on a colonial shipwreck for the Submerged Resources Center for the National Park Service in Southeast Florida.

Miss Benanty, a Researcher/Writer for Science Visualization, has already worked on proposals for children’s books, television series, and exhibits. She is overseeing the development of the first annual conference. She currently lives in New York City, and you can find more about her work and travels at www.lostark.org.