July 13, 2026
The Archaeological Institute of America is proud to recognize the Save Ancient Studies Alliance (SASA) with the 2027 Outstanding Public Service Award.
Ahead of the AIA Awards Ceremony during the 2027 Annual Meeting, we spoke with Founder and Executive Director David Danzig about the organization’s mission, what inspired its creation, and its vision for the future.
To learn more about the Save Ancient Studies Alliance, click here to visit their website.
You can also tune in to SASA’s upcoming Opening the Ancient World virtual conference, “Fashion Forward: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Apparel,” streaming live Sunday–Monday, July 19–20, 2026. Click here for more information.
What sparked your interest in archaeology?
Studying the past has been an interest of mine since I was young, stemming from my Jewish background and study of Jewish history. Over time, my interests expanded greatly. While I was still a PhD candidate, I founded Save Ancient Studies Alliance to bring together all people who study the past and share our passions with the world.
Tell us about your history with the AIA:
Although I have not been a member of AIA, SASA has had a good working relationship with SCS for the past six years, so we have had a presence at the annual meeting in some of those years. I am excited to meet AIA leadership and members and discuss our shared interest in growing our fields.
What’s next?
SASA is in the initial stages of developing a new Departments Advocacy Program to help threatened university departments work toward increasing their perceived utility and stature within their institutions. In the next half year, we will be seeking brave partners at such departments who have concerns for their stability, to be open to working with SASA in this way.
How did you get started with your project?
During my doctoral studies, I often heard my colleagues express their anxieties about future employment by saying “the job market is awful.” They saw the decreasing scope of humanities education as an impending doom. I saw this as a great challenge and as a responsibility for all those fortunate to dig deeply into the past to work to ensure that our efforts and those of scholars for the last 250 years continue to have a place in the future. Drawing on my experience as a database admin at a nonprofit, which gave me insight into all of the working components of nonprofit work, I knew that something could be done. Envisioning a new way of bringing people together across the world through digital interpersonal forums, I began reaching out to friends and colleagues.
But, what could be the solution to this problem? If people are less and less interested in the humanities, how could we change minds? I think most people love the ancient past! They see it in mass media around them constantly, and they are incredibly engaged and interested in these fascinating past worlds. The question then is actually how to engage people with the past in educational settings? That is the point of disconnect where our educational modes and systems fail to capture minds.
Taking the direct approach, I named our new volunteer-driven organization Save Ancient Studies Alliance (SASA), a blunt name for a large undertaking. Starting as a small team of passionate volunteers, we brainstormed new solutions to this problem and approaches. I set the goals for our projects as: operating adjacent to and in partnership with academic contexts, having the potential to kindle transformative impacts while requiring relatively modest costs, and driving meaningful change in a grassroots fashion, rather than butting heads with institutional structures. Key to this would be educational innovation.
Most people believe we are a fusion of our past heritage and present journey. I wholeheartedly agree. In truth, as a way to better understand this legacy and our connection to it, we constantly reflect the past back to ourselves in our media – books, movies, and video games. Therefore, these avenues offer much promise for engaging contemporary society about the past. SASA works to capitalize off of the large interest public and educational audiences have about the past to direct it toward a desire to learn more about it. At the same time, we break barriers to access to studying the past, in order to enable people to engage with archaeology and history as they grow more interested.
What achievement are you most proud of?
I am very proud, as well as humbled, and thankful, for all of the wonderful people who have volunteered in so many ways at SASA over the past six years. Bringing them together, working toward our common cause, and helping them grow toward achieving their career goals has been awe inspiring.
Questions? Learn more about AIA Awards here or reach out to awards@archaeological.org
