April 30, 2026
To celebrate our 2026 Fellowship recipients, we connected with this year’s awardees to learn more about their projects and the unique paths that led them into the field of archaeology.
We’re thrilled to introduce Nicole Constantine, recipient of the prestigious 2026 Anna C. and Oliver C. Colburn Fellowship!
Nicole Constantine (Stanford University)
Tell us about your project:
With support from the Colburn Fellowship, Nicole will travel to Greece to study the material from two Hellenistic-era Aegean shipwrecks as part of her dissertation research. Her dissertation centers ancient Mediterranean sailors as its subject, considering the lives, labor and knowledge of these figures who were central to the story of Mediterranean connectivity but are largely absent from its textual records. Her research project in Greece, “Sailing the Hellenistic Aegean: A Social Archaeology of Shipwrecks,” focuses on the galley assemblages from the two wrecks – one from the 3rd century BCE and the other from the 1st century BCE – to investigate the patterns of daily life onboard. A stay at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens will allow Nicole to access the assemblages of metal and ceramic vessels housed in museum collections. Through close analysis of the cooking, dining and drinking vessels, she will consider how crews adapted their daily practices to life at sea. Study of the galley wares will aid in better understanding the number of sailors aboard each ship, the styles of cooking and dining, and whether it is possible to detect social differentiation between members of the ships’ crews through the material assemblages. The study of the galley wares from these ships will contribute to Nicole’s larger project of viewing ancient ships as social spaces.
How did you get your start in archaeology?
I took my first archaeology class during my undergraduate studies at Loyola University in Chicago, and developed an interest in the way even very humble objects can tell us human stories about the past. The first archaeological research I conducted as an undergraduate was a study of an assemblage of cans, bottles and cooking pots from an early-20th century Chicago dump as evidence for shifts towards the consumption of shelf-stable packaged foods. Though I now work in the ancient Mediterranean, the same themes and questions continue to interest me – the practices and materials of everyday life, and what they can tell us about social, economic and political change. Learning how to analyze ceramics gave me a powerful tool for addressing these questions, and as an MA and now PhD student, I have gained experience anchoring broader theoretical questions to close and careful treatment of ceramic evidence.
Where in the world has archaeology brought you (fieldwork, research, conference travel, etc.)?
As a maritime archaeologist, I have been lucky to spend as much time in the Mediterranean Sea as I have around it. I have been a part of maritime and land-based archaeological projects in the U.S. Sicily, Israel and Türkiye. Most recently, I have joined a collaborative project with scholars from Dokuz Eylul University in Türkiye to survey the maritime archaeological record of the Bozburun Peninsula, which was an important intersection of maritime exchange networks between the Mediterranean and the Aegean Seas. From the vantage point of this coastline, we aim to study an expanded world of maritime commerce in the Hellenistic period, and the maritime communities that formed around its many small bays and inlets. The support of the Colburn Fellowship will allow me my first opportunity to study material from Greek waters. While my study of material in Athens will take place on dry land, I am excited to be able to expand my knowledge of the maritime archaeological record and experience life in Athens!
What is one of the most memorable things that has happened to you in the field?
Last year, participating in maritime archaeological survey in Türkiye meant that I got to experience life onboard a ship firsthand! Since my dissertation is focused on the experience of shipboard life, spending two weeks on a ship, navigating the Aegean coast was an invaluable experience – both for the archaeological sites we were able to access and the opportunity to make observations about daily life at sea. While on the ship, between dives, I kept a notebook of my experiences and observations which I will draw on as I think about the ancient evidence for shipboard life. Though my experience in 2025 is not perfectly analogous to life on the ancient sea, it seems that some of the confines and opportunities provided by shipboard life and the maritime environment can be observed through time. Some favorite observations include the way we diverted our pre-planned course after seeing some birds on the surface of the sea, so the crew could cast out lines for fish. Everyday we observed small boats motoring over to the tiny islands that dot the coast so shepherds could feed and water the goat herds they kept on the islands. The mountainous topography of the coastline made maritime transport easier (and sometimes a necessity). The daily tasks of our archaeological work (mostly drawing pottery) were accompanied by a bleated soundtrack from these nearby ‘goat islands.’ Above all, I was struck with the uneven tempos of daily life at sea: sometimes the ship was abuzz with bustling activity, other times it was calm and quiet.
How has the AIA contributed to your success/professional goals?
The AIA has been formative in my development as a scholar, an academic and a member of a professional community. I gave my first conference paper as an MA student at the AIA’s Annual Meeting in 2018. This experience afforded me an early opportunity to encounter the work of a wide variety of scholars and receive feedback on my own. Participation in successive Annual Meetings also gave me opportunities to hear from advanced graduate students and academic faculty members about educational and career paths and professional development – aspects of academic life that can often feel opaque to graduate students.
Since coming to Stanford to pursue my PhD, I have also become a part of Stanford’s local AIA Society, and serve as a Student Representative on the Society’s Board. This experience has allowed me to see firsthand the strong public interest in archaeology, and reflect on how academic and professional archaeologists can engage that interest in meaningful ways. The generous support of the Colburn Fellowship is the latest way I have benefited from membership in the AIA. I am grateful for the many opportunities the AIA has provided, and look forward to conducting my research project in Greece with the AIA’s support!
Learn more about what Fellowship and Grant opportunities are available through the AIA.
