Smithsonian Journeys Experts

Natasha Ayers received her PhD in Egyptian Archaeology from the University of Chicago. She has almost 20 years of experience working on excavations across Egypt, and she is the ceramicist for Middle Kingdom through New Kingdom pottery at Tell Edfu. Natasha is excited to share her insights during the visit to Edfu on our Ancient Egypt and the Nile journey!

Natasha is currently a senior postdoctoral research fellow at the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna, where she received a research grant from the Austrian Science Fund for her project “Communities Reassembled – Rethinking Identity in Ancient Egypt.” She is a specialist in the material culture of the second millennium BCE, and her research focuses on using artifacts in combination with anthropological theory to better understand the complexities of identity and community in ancient Egypt.

Previously, Natasha designed and taught adult education courses in the archaeology of Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean at Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (formerly the Oriental Institute), as well as undergraduate courses at the University of Chicago. She has collaborated on publication projects with numerous museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley, California.