Dr. Michele Koons is a Curator of Archaeology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. She grew up just outside of Philadelphia, PA, and was awarded her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2001. After interning at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, she moved to Colorado and worked at the Museo de las Americas in Denver and in cultural resource management in Wyoming, she then attended the University of Denver where she explored the site of Tiwanaku in Bolivia and was awarded her M.A. in Anthropology in 2006. Koons moved on to Harvard University, where she pursued research on the Moche archaeological culture of Peru and received her Ph.D. in Anthropology 2012. While at Harvard, she worked at the Peabody Museum and volunteered at the Boston Museum of Science. Afterward, Koons worked as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science before accepting her current position as a curator there. The ideas of discovery and exploration captivated Koons from an early age. She grew up in Philadelphia, but she spent each summer with her family on the Jersey shore. Her favorite beach activities were looking for creatures on rocks, digging in the sand, and burying and excavating her toys. She also loved hearing stories from her uncle about the Roman artifacts they found when he lived in England. Koons was fascinated by archaeology, but people kept encouraging her to pursue other careers. In college, Koons initially majored in physical therapy, but she eventually found her way back to archaeology. After a volunteer outreach program to Bolivia in her freshman year, she changed her major to Latin American studies and anthropology. She later participated in an archaeology field school in Chile as part of a study abroad program. The leader of the program happened to be an archaeologist and got her involved with an archaeology project there. She got her first job as a seasonal worker in cultural resource management in Wyoming. After this job, Koons decided to go to graduate school to pursue her dream career in archaeology. Koons studies ancient complex societies and is especially interested in ancient political dynamics, social networks, and how people of the past interacted with their environment. In her research, she uses different geophysical methods and traditional archaeological techniques, such as excavation and pedestrian survey. She also specializes in ceramic analysis and radiocarbon dating. Koons has conducted archaeological research throughout the United States, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and China. She currently conducts research in the American Southwest, on Colorado’s Front Range, and in Peru. Koons curates the archaeological collections from Latin American, North America, and Egypt at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

click here