This month, Dr Barbora Wouters took up the position of Assistant Professor of Geoarchaeology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She was previously employed as a postdoctoral research fellow at UrbNet, where she spent two years associated with the Northern Emporium – Ribe Excavation Project working as a geoarchaeologist and micromorphologist. The first four years of her new employment will be spent as a research professor (BOF tenure track), after which it will be transformed into a teaching position.

Barbora Wouters holds a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge, and a dual doctorate from Aberdeen University and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She obtained a junior postdoctoral fellowship from the Research Foundation – Flanders prior to coming to Aarhus in 2017. She serves on the editorial board of the Flemish archaeological magazine Ex situ, and was nominated for the EOS Pipette Award for most promising young researcher in Flanders in 2018.

Her research interests include the geoarchaeology of towns and dwelling, the study of dark earths (terres noires), and the development of archaeological method and theory. During her tenure track, she will be focusing on expanding her geoarchaeological and micromorphological research of (early) medieval and Viking-age towns both geographically and chronologically, and on developing new lines of research that focus on interdisciplinary work concerning urbanity and urbanism. While the position is predominantly research-based, she will also be teaching a course on archaeological science and supervising student research. She will continue working on material from Ribe and looks forward to fostering further collaborations with UrbNet in her new position.