Michael Heilen
I am a Principal Investigator for Statistical Research, Inc., where I serve as the Director of the Center for the Study of Cultural Landscapes. I also work for the Arizona Army National Guard as a Principal Data Scientist / Senior Geospatial Analyst. I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis, am a Technical Advisor to Leaders in Energy and Preservation and am on two committees for the American Cultural Resources Association: Government Relations and Metrics and Standards. Having graduated with an AB in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1994, I began my professional career in 1995 as a field archaeologist and laboratory analyst working in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region and Hawaii. I completed a Masters of Arts in 2002 and a PhD in Anthropology in 2005 at the University of Arizona, specializing in landscape archaeology and ecological anthropology. In 2005, I began working for SRI, where I have honed skills in archaeological synthesis, quantitative analysis, predictive modeling, and GIS. At SRI, I have worked on diverse field, analytical, and archaeological synthesis projects in Mongolia, Senegal, and the US Southwest, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, Pacific Coast, and Southeast for numerous clients, including the Department of Defense, ADOT, New Mexico BLM, Pima County, Howard University, Luke AFB, USACE, Sustainability East Asia, and other major clients. I have been the principal investigator for multiple projects involving intensive processing and analysis of diverse environmental and cultural GIS data in the study of site structure, settlement distribution, land use, site location, site significance, and erosion. I have also been a major contributor, author, and editor of several volumes having to do with mortuary analysis and bioarchaeology and was the PI and Research Director for the investigation of the Alameda-Stone Cemetery in Tucson, one of the largest and most complex excavations of a historical-period cemetery ever conducted. As part of this work, I was the editor and a major author for Uncovering Identity in Mortuary Analysis: Community-Sensitive Methods for Identifying Group Affiliation in Historical Cemeteries, published by Left Coast Press in June 2012. I also had the unique opportunity to design and write (with colleagues) the synthesis and general audience volumes for the New York African Burial Ground project, volumes that were based on the original technical volumes and complimentary literature (see post about the volumes). Most recently, I have been involved in archaeological modeling, database development, and development of software tools for collecting and leveraging cultural and natural resource data for project planning and resource management.
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