Miriam T. Stark will share insights with you throughout this journey into Southeast Asia’s past. With nearly four decades of field experience in the region, Professor Stark directs archaeological research programs in Cambodia that explore political economy and early state formation. She co-directs several major initiatives—including the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project, the Khmer Production and Exchange Project, Pteah Cambodia, and Phum Archaeology—in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Oregon, Yale University, Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, and APSARA National Authority. A faculty member at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa since 1995, Professor Stark specializes in Asian archaeology as well as archaeological method and theory, and currently leads the university’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. She also serves on the U.S. State Department’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee (2022–2027), focusing on Southeast Asia, and has published extensively on the region. Her recent co-edited volume with Mitch Hendrickson and Damian Evans, The Angkorian World (Routledge, 2023), reflects her ongoing commitment to advancing scholarship on Cambodian archaeology. Professor Stark will illuminate the ancient trade networks that connected Southeast Asia to the wider Old World and examine the origins of the region’s earliest civilizations, with special attention to the rise of the Khmer Empire. Her expertise brings the archaeological landscape to life, offering travelers rare insight into the histories that shaped this remarkable part of the world.
Asian archaeologist at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
