Welcome to the Peabody Museum’s Annex! The Annex is our main archaeological collection storage as well as a cataloging, research and teaching space.
The Annex Catalog Crew is busy at work each day helping to make the inorganic archaeological collections at the Museum accessible to Harvard faculty and students, external researchers, and other stakeholders. Each member of the Catalog Crew is committed to overseeing the ethical care and stewardship of the extensive archaeological collections held by the Peabody Museum.
There are now nine members of the Annex team, consisting of one Collections Steward, four full-time Collections Technicians, and four part-time Collections Technicians. Our daily tasks vary greatly from day to day. The Catalog Crew members’ main responsibilities are to catalog, inventory, and photograph objects housed in the Annex. Our work also helps to facilitate research and teaching with the archaeological collections through preparing the collections for researchers and classes.
Besides these tasks, Crew members can be found carefully moving large objects, such as the Mesoamerican plaster casts. We also help others on the Collections Management team to facilitate integrated pest management and collections moves. Several of the Collections Technicians have taken on interns as well as students in the winter session at the Harvard Extension School’s museum studies program, where we teach them about collections management through hands-on projects.
Display cases in the Museum’s main lobby have been and continue to be an avenue for Catalog Crew members to curate small exhibits highlighting the collections being cataloged in the Annex.
The work that the Catalog Crew does each day is integral to facilitating care of and access to the Peabody Museum’s archaeological collections. There is always something new to learn and a new object to discover! Each member of the Catalog Crew brings a new perspective to the table, creating an energetic environment filled with excitement for museums, collections stewardship, and research.
Let’s learn some more about the Team! Some Fun Facts about the Catalog Crew:
All together we have 16 BAs in Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Philosophy, Psychology, Latin American Studies, and Spanish, and have 5 MAs in Historical Archaeology and Museum Studies.
We have worked in 7 foreign countries including Israel, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Antigua, Hungary and South Africa. We can speak 6 languages: English, Spanish, Hebrew, Hungarian, German, and French. We are proficient in 10 collections management software packages and have collectively worked in museums for about 30 years!
Meet the Team!
Kati Albert, Collections Technician
My name is Katherine (Kati) Albert, and I am a Collections Technician in the Peabody Annex working on the Harvard Yard Project. I’m from Rochester, NY, but I currently live in Dorchester, MA. I have a B.A. in History and Anthropology from Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY), and am a current second-year student in the Historical Archaeology Master’s Program at UMass Boston. My research interests include historic architecture, cultural identity formation in colonial contexts, and archaeological film production.
John Crawmer, Collections Technician
I’m from York, Pennsylvania and I’m currently finishing my master’s degree in Historical Archaeology at UMass Boston. I’ve been an archaeologist for the past 6 years, excavating sites in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, mid-west, and Israel. Outside of my collections work in the Annex, I oversee a community archaeology project at a Revolutionary War Prison Camp in my hometown.
Gary Ellis, Collections Technician
I’m from Pennsylvania and have done field and museum work all along the mid-Atlantic and New England. I hold an Associates of Science degree and a B.A. in Anthropology as well as Philosophy. I am currently writing my master’s thesis, and my research interests include material culture of New England, indigenous sovereignty, and decolonizing the discipline of archaeology.
Annie Greco, Collections Technician
I am originally from Hopkinton, Massachusetts (start of the Boston Marathon!) but have lived in Boston for the past 12 years. I have a B.A. in Psychology and Latin American Studies from Boston College, a Higher Diploma in Archaeology from University College Dublin, and an M.A. in Historical Archaeology from UMass Boston. I have participated in archaeological excavations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, California, and Iceland. I interned for the National NAGPRA Program in Washington, D.C. in the Fall of 2017, where I researched the role of maps in repatriation. Afterwards, I worked at Old South Meeting House followed by the R.S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology before coming to the Peabody Museum at Harvard in October 2018. So far in the Annex, I have worked on collections from New Jersey, Ohio, and Brazil.
Lissa Herzing, Collections Technician
Hi! My name is Lissa Herzing and I am working as a collections technician at the Peabody Museum and I am originally from Kinderhook, NY. I earned my B.A. in Anthropology and Archaeological Studies from SUNY Potsdam and have since moved to Boston and am currently working on my master’s degree in Historical Archaeology at UMass Boston. At the Peabody, I work in the Annex inventorying artifacts excavated as a part of the Harvard Yard Archaeology Project. I am interested in exploring the intersections of race, gender, and class in the lived experiences of people of African descent in the past through archaeology.
Sarah Johnson, Collections Technician
I knew I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was 15 years old, and I haven’t ever looked back! I graduated with a B.A. in archaeology from Cornell University in 2011 and an M.A. in Historical Archaeology from UMass Boston in 2018, where I wrote my thesis on a school for underprivileged girls in Dorchester. I am originally from Leominster, MA, and now live in Mansfield with my fiancé and our cat. In my free time, I enjoy knitting – I just finished my first sweater! I’ve worked at the Peabody in some capacity since 2015, first as a work study student and an LHT, and now as a collections technician. For the first two years, I worked almost exclusively on the Harvard Yard collections, before moving on to the Ohio project. In between, I’ve had my hands on a lot of different collections, from Ksar Akil to Mesoamerica to Mesopotamia. For now, I’m still working my way through Ohio, supporting Dr. Rob Cook’s research visit.
Emily Katz, Collections Technician
Hi, my name is Emily Katz and I am from Omaha, NE. I have a B.A. in Anthropology and Spanish Language from Loyola University in Chicago and a M.A. in Museum Studies from the University of San Francisco. My background is in museum administration and management as a whole. I tended to focus my studies and internships in museum education. Through different internships and volunteer opportunities within education departments in both art and science museums, I realized the importance of arts integration and decided to focus my thesis project on arts integration into STEM topics. Specifically, my thesis paper proposed a project of integrating the arts into a science museum public program. Additionally, my previous job was working at an arts non-profit, focusing on arts integration into public school STEM curriculum.
Jennifer Poulsen, Collections Steward
Hi, my name is Jen! I have my B.A. from Boston University with a major in Archaeology and a minor in Earth Science. I earned my M.A. from UMass Boston’s Historical Archaeology program, where I presented a thesis on consumer behavior and 19th-century bottle glass. Recently, I have earned a certificate in Non-Profit Management through the Harvard Extension School. I am interested in collections management, the relationship between government and archaeology, and the archaeology of sewing. I manage the collections at the annex, focusing on improving object safety and accessibility. I lead a stellar crew of Collections Technicians, as they catalog and inventory priority collections that support research and teaching. In addition, I continue to work with building management to facilitate upgrades to the building itself which, in turn, will protect the collections.
Zach Williams, Collections Technician
Hello! My name is Zach Williams and I grew up in the always-sunny city of Sunnyvale, California. I hold a B.A. in History and Anthropology, and a M.A. in Museum Studies. Since entering the field, I have worked at several museums and archaeology labs, and have participated in excavations in California, NYC, and Antigua, West Indies. I currently serve as a Collections Technician here at the Peabody, and work to catalog, rehouse and photograph archaeological collections. My work here has taken me around the world with collections coming from Brazil, France, Palestine, Morocco, and the United States.
Thanks for taking some time to learn about the work that the Catalog Crew does in the Annex!
Author: Lissa Herzing, Collections Technician