As I enter my third year as director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, I find myself reflecting on the formative period I spent here as a struggling undergraduate student, trying to find both my way in the world and my community on campus. My time as a student at UCLA was concurrent with an intense wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in the wake of Proposition 187, the horrific attacks on 9/11, and the beginning of the militarization of the U.S.–Mexico border. It was a challenging time to be a young person on campus, and I found my solace and support in the Cotsen community, which instilled in me a passion for archaeology and its power to help us understand our current political world through the lens of the longue durée of history. Many faculty (some of whom are now my colleagues), staff, and students in the institute took me under their wing and fundamentally changed my life for the better. Given the sociopolitical turmoil we are currently experiencing globally, I am grateful to once again be in the Cotsen with a supportive community of people who are dedicated to the mission of archaeology and the important lessons it can teach us about the past, our troubled present, and perhaps an optimistic future.
It is likely that sometime in the distant future, historians will look back at 2026 and find the word unprecedented sprinkled throughout our archives and oral histories. However, as students of history, we know that political instability, climate change, moments of great inequality, and fascism are not twenty-first century inventions. Our ancestors weathered these storms many times in the past, and together we will find ways to get through these difficult imes with grace, hope, and a push for positive social change.
The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology is committed to supporting forward-thinking and ethically driven archaeological research while fostering a learning environment that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. We have made great progress toward these goals in recent years, much of it highlighted throughout this issue. This includes an expansion of our Waystation Initiative, which recently piloted an on-campus summer training and professionalization program for undergraduates at local community colleges and Cal State universities. The program is intended to introduce students to provenance research, help them present at professional conferences, and prepare them to either transfer to UCLA or apply to graduate school.
As part of our ongoing commitment to student research, many of our wonderfully precocious undergraduates have been able to conduct summer fieldwork around the globe thanks to funding from our Cotsen Undergraduate Research Grant. Many of those same students have presented that research (or will soon) at upcoming professional conferences, including those of the Society for American Archaeology and the American Anthropological Association. I am grateful to Victoria Newhall, who managed our student mentorship and student-led public outreach programs for the second year in a row. Under Vicky’s guidance, we expanded our efforts to connect with local schools (including our now annual visit to Johnnie Cochran Middle School) and organized our second K–12 open house in conjunction with the Ernestine Elster Annual Lecture. As we look to the future, the Cotsen will continue to expand our public outreach efforts and our support of undergraduate and graduate student research.
Since our last issue of Backdirt, we have had many things to celebrate.
We welcomed several new colleagues, including Koji Lau-Ozawa (Anthropology), Kelly Nguyen (Classics and Digital Humanities), Caitlin O’Grady (Conservation and Anthropology), and Lara Fabian (Near Eastern Languages and Culture), as well as a number of shorter-term affiliates like Wolfgang Alders and Nicholas Bartos (Classics).
We celebrated the retirement of our publications director Randi Danforth, who left some very big shoes to fill after her many years of service. Randi shepherded countless books through the publication process and probably wrangled more authors than she cares to count. Taylor McBride has now stepped into that vital role for the institute. Taylor is a Los Angeles native (and Clippers fan) who has returned to southern California after many years in New York, where she most recently served as the publications and interpretive manager at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Welcome Taylor!
Michelle Jacobson, our longtime development director and event organizer, retired last year to the East Coast to spend more time with her grandchildren. Michelle was my lifeline during my first year as director and was a constant source of advice, calming guidance, and literal note cards to get me through the gauntlet the director must face. She is greatly missed. I am happy to report that Perla Torres has stepped into the roles of event organizer, manager of my research lab, and manager of our outreach efforts. Perla previously worked with me in Arizona as part of the nonprofit wing of the Undocumented Migration Project. (See her writeup in this edition.)
Our wonderful Cotsen Director’s Council, composed of Harris and Margaret Bass, Kathleen and David Boochever, Debby Arnold and Walt Zipperman, Weezie and Charlie Steinmetz, Dulcy and Diedrich Bader, and Margaret Arvey, continued its support of our students, faculty, and staff through their generous philanthropy and guidance, which I have found to be indispensable over the last three years. I am also thrilled to welcome three new members to that council, Bijan Kharrazi, Jim Harris, and Dorothy Jewell.
As always, thanks to Glenn Wharton and Stephen Acabado for their tireless work managing the institute’s Conservation and Archaeology IDPs. We look forward to welcoming our new cohorts of graduate students this coming year. In addition, many thanks to Aaron Burke for his tireless efforts as editor in chief of the editorial board at the Cotsen Press and for herding the many people who contributed to this issue.
As we were getting ready to send this issue to press, we got the heartbreaking news of the loss of our colleague Ioanna Kakoulli. For this issue, Glenn Wharton has coauthored a moving tribute to her life, her well-documented kindness and generosity, and her many intellectual contributions. Ioanna will be greatly missed by so many people. Her loss is still hard to process, but I find some small comfort in knowing that our discipline has good people like her, who strive to inspire students, create knowledge, and leave academia (and the world) a little bit better than they found it.
We had also intended to use this issue to celebrate the 100th birthday of our dear friend and beloved colleague Ernestine Elster who reached that milestone in December of 2025. We are saddened to share the news that Ernie passed away in February of this year. Ernie was the heart and soul of this institution and played a variety of roles here over the last five decades, including PhD student, research associate, publications director, benefactor, and all-around supporter of archaeology. Our next issue of Backdirt will include a formal tribute to Ernie and her countless contributions to the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. We miss you dearly Ernie!