Deborah Carlson, Ph.D.
President, INA
Deborah Carlson is a tenured Associate Professor at Texas A&M University and holds the Sara W. and George O. Yamini Professorship in Nautical Archaeology. She became President of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology on March 1, 2011.
A classical archaeologist specializing in trade and seafaring in the ancient Mediterranean, Dr. Carlson earned an M.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Arizona, where she participated in terrestrial excavations in Greece and Italy. Deborah came to INA and Texas A&M University with husband John 15 years ago (on the ‘three-year plan’). As a graduate student in the Nautical Archaeology Program, she studied with INA Founder and Professor Emeritus Dr. George Bass, who invited her to serve as the assistant director of INA’s fifth-century B.C. Classical Greek shipwreck excavation at Tektaş Burnu, Turkey (1999-2001).
Her dissertation research, which focused on the amphora cargo from the Tektaş Burnu shipwreck, led to a Ph.D. in Classics at the University of Texas at Austin in 2004. Deborah joined the faculty of the Nautical Archaeology Program that same year. In 2005, together with then INA President Dr. Donny Hamilton, she launched the excavation of a ship that sank off the coast of Kızılburun, Turkey in the first-century B.C. while transporting a marble column weighing more than 50 tons. Currently, Deborah teaches undergraduate courses in Greek and Roman archaeology, and a graduate seminar in Classical Seafaring at Texas A&M.
An active member of the National Lecture Program sponsored by INA’s sister organization, the Archaeological Institute of America, Deborah is one of two Martha Sharp Joukowsky lecturers for 2010-11. Her archaeological fieldwork has been funded by the Archaeological Institute of America, National Geographic, the American Philosophical Society, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and the American Research Institute in Turkey. She has published the results of her maritime research in the American Journal of Archaeology, Hesperia, the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, and Archaeology magazine. Deborah is currently overseeing the final publication of the Tektaş Burnu shipwreck as well as the proceedings of a 2007 symposium on Byzantine maritime trade.
Deborah has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Turkey every summer for the better part of a decade, and enjoys an excellent working relationship with the talented staff of the Bodrum Research Center. As previous chair of INA’s Archaeological Committee, Deborah is firmly committed to ensuring INA’s legacy of quality scholarship through support for high-caliber archaeological survey, fieldwork, and research projects.
Deborah Carlson at Tektaş Burnu
Deborah Carlson at Tektaş Burnu with George Bass