Kenyon College

Claire Novotny is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Her research interests include the archaeology of ancient Maya households and communities, the role of identity in social and political affiliation, and how archaeological knowledge is created and used in contemporary societies, specifically among Indigenous communities. For her dissertation research at UNC-Chapel Hill, she worked with Aguacate, a Q'eqchi' Maya village located in southern Belize, to design and implement a community archaeology project that investigated ancient Maya archaeological sites on community land. Before teaching at Kenyon, Professor Novotny was Program Director at InHerit: Passed to Present, a cultural heritage nonprofit housed in the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at UNC-Chapel Hill. As program director for InHerit, she planned and implemented educational programs about archaeology and heritage for local communities in Yucatán, Mexico, Petén, Guatemala, and Toledo, Belize.