Staff profile

Originally from southern Ontario, Canada, Karen received her BA in Anthropology and Near Eastern Studies from Victoria College, University of Toronto, in 1995. Her field training began as a seasonal employee with Parks Canada, working on historic sites in Ontario, but two field seasons in Ireland expanded her professional interest to include the Early Medieval Period in northern Europe. She went to Peterhouse, at the University of Cambridge, to do an MPhil in World Archaeology (1st Millennium AD) in 1995, which deepened her interest in the Vikings and sparked a new interest in geoarchaeology and soil micromorphology. She stayed at the University of Cambridge to do her PhD at Newnham College, working on Viking Age and 19th-century (ethno-historic) houses in Iceland, using geoarchaeological analyses of floor sediments to elucidate living conditions and how living spaces were organised and used.

Since 1997, Karen has brought expertise in archaeological field survey, excavation, and geoarchaeology to numerous Viking Age, Pictish Period, Medieval, and Early Modern projects in England, Scotland, Norway, Iceland, and, most recently, Siberia and Canada. She worked as seasonal excavation staff for the Institute of Archaeology, Iceland (FSÍ), from 2000-2007, becoming Director of the FSÍ / North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation's Field School in North Atlantic Archaeology in 2005, and Project Manager of the Viking Age Vatnsfjörður Excavation Project in 2006, roles she retained until the completion of the Vatnsfjörður excavation in 2013.

Karen was appointed Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen in 2007, where she helped to establish the new Department of Archaeology and had a key role in the development of its udergraduate degree programmes, serving as Undergraduate Programme Coordinator from 2007-2011. In 2009 the Graduate Program in Anthropology at the City University of New York appointed her as Adjunct Research Professor in recognition of her ongoing research and research-led teaching in the North Atlantic region. Karen was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2015.

On August 1, 2017, Karen moved to the Department of Archaeology at Durham University to take up the post of Associate Professor (Reader) in Geoarchaeology. She remains an Honorary Research Fellow with the Department of Archaeology at Aberdeen University.

• Migrations and invasions and relationships between incomers and indigenous peoples
• Impacts of culture contact on material culture, especially residential architecture and objects used in everyday life
• Ethnoarchaeology and ethno-historic archaeology, especially to help develop new methodologies for the interpretation of activity areas
• Experimental archaeology
• Geoarchaeology, including soil survey, archaeological soil micromorphology, geochemistry, magnetic techniques, and lipid biomarkers
• Early medieval period, especially the Viking Age, in: Scandinavia, the North Atlantic Region, NW Siberia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Isle of Man
• 19th and early 20th century in: Scotland, the North Atlantic Region, and Canada
• Excavation and environmental sampling methods
• Ground-truthing of remote sensing anomalies, including multi-spectral satellite imagery
• Microrefuse analysis
• Space syntax analysis in archaeology
• Human-environment-animal interactions
• Social archaeology of houses, farmsteads, and transhumant/nomadic pastoralist sites

• 2017: Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen: In recognition of her ongoing research links with the Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, Karen has been made an Honorary Research Fellow from 2017-2022.
• 2017: Adjunct (Honorary) Research Professor, City University of New York, Graduate Centre in Anthropology: Since 2009, Karen has held the position of Adjunct Research Professor at the Graduate Centre for Anthropology, City University of New York, due to her ongoing contribution to research and research-led teaching in the archaeology of the North Atlantic Region. She was director of the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization's (NABO's) Field School in North Atlantic Archaeology from 2005-2013.
• 2017: Developing International Geoarchaeology (DIG) Conference Steering Committee: Since being a co-organiser of the DIG 2007 conference in Cambridge, Karen has been on the steering committee of this large international conference.
• 2016: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Northeast Section Committee Member: From 2008-2012, and again from 2014-2016, Karen served as a committee member of the Northeast Section of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
• 2016: Advisory Board for the Directory of Archaeological Scientists in Scotland: From 2013-2016, Karen served on the Advisory Board for the Directory of Archaeological Scientists, an initiative stemming from the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework's Vision for Science in Scottish Archaeology.
• 2016: Scottish Strategic Archaeology Committee: From 2013-2016, Karen served on the Scottish Strategic Archaeology Committee for Historic Scotland (now Historic Environment Scotland), and was one of the authors of Scotland's Archaeology Strategy.
• 2016: Consultant for BBC / PBS / NOVA Programme on the Vikings: From 2014-2016, Karen was an advisor for programme development, script-reading, and fact-checking for the BBC One History Programme 'The Vikings Uncovered'.
• 2015: Society for Medieval Archaeology Council Member: From 2012-2015, Karen served as a general council member for the Society of Medieval Archaeology.
• 2013: Co-Chair, Science Panel, Scottish Archaeological Research Framework (ScARF): From 2009-2013, Karen served as Co-Chair, together with Prof. Richard Jones, of the ScARF Science Panel, and co-edited and co-authored the Science Panel Report.