Sherene Baugher

As the first City Archeologist for New York City (1980-1990), I learned the importance of linking research, outreach, and community collaboration. I worked with landscape architects and planners in the preservation of New York City sites. I have a BA, MA, and Ph.D. in Anthropological Archaeology. I became a faculty member at Cornell in 1991 and was the first and only woman to be the Director of the Archaeology Program at Cornell (2005-2009). Because of my interdisciplinary work in landscape architecture and historic preservation, I am involved in research questions regarding “landscapes of memory” and the preservation and interpretation of those landscapes.  As a historical archaeologist working on North American sites, my research focuses on how material culture and human alterations to the landscape reveal the lifestyles of underrepresented citizens, in terms of the location of their homes, gardens, and workspaces. I analyze the roles played by people of diverse backgrounds in terms of class, gender, race, and ethnicity and how these different people designed and transformed their communities. To accomplish this work, I focus on material culture to analyze and reveal the lifestyles and landscapes of the working class and the underclass, as well as other underrepresented groups, such as Native Americans.  My community partnerships enable me to connect past to present and to reveal connections to these sites held by these various descendant communities – to what scholars’ term “the power of place.”

Selected Publications

• 2017 Urban Archaeology, Municipal Government and Local Planning: Preserving Heritage within the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States (Sherene Baugher, Douglas R. Appler, and William Moss, editors). Springer, New York.
• 2014 The Archaeology of American Cemeteries and Gravemarkers. (Sherene Baugher and Richard Veit). University Press of Florida: Gainesville.
• 2013 The Inlet Valley Project: Reflections on an Early Model for Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Service-Learning Courses in Landscape Architecture (Sherene Baugher and George Frantz). Landscape Journal 32 (1): 113-130.