overview

• Nathan Richards, BA(Hons.), Ph.D.Professor, Maritime Studies Program, East Carolina UniversityEducation:Ph.D. in Archaeology, 2002,Flinders University, Adelaide, South AustraliaBA (Hons.) in Archaeology, 1997, Flinders University, Adelaide, South AustraliaBA in Philosophy, Visual Arts and Archaeology, 1996, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia
  Research Interests:
  Dr. Richards specializes in maritime archaeological theory and method with a focus on cultural site formation processes of the archaeological record. He has an interest 19th and 20th century maritime history, the history of technology, and in comparative and anthropological approaches to maritime archaeological subjects. He has been involved in field schools run by Departments of Archaeology at Flinders University (South Australia), and James Cook University (Queensland), and has been employed in cultural heritage management work by the State Governments of South Australia and Tasmania. His research has appeared in theBulletin of the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology,The Great Circle(the journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History), theInternational Journal of Nautical Archaeology, theBermuda Journal of Maritime History and Archaeology, andHistorical Archaeologyas well as other journal articles, book chapters, and numerous reports and reviews. He is co-author (with Robyn Hartell) ofThe Garden Island Ships' Graveyard Maritime Heritage Trail(Government of South Australia, 2001), author ofShips' Graveyards: Abandoned Watercraft and the Archaeological Formation Process(University Press of Florida, 2008), and co-editor ofThe Archaeology of Watercraft Abandonment(with Sami Seeb, Springer Press, 2013). Dr. Richards is an active member of the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (serving on their editorial board, and their newsletter editor 2001-2006) and the Australian Association for Maritime History. He is a former Associate Editor for the journalHistorical Archaeology, and currently sits on the editorial board of theInternational Journal of Maritime Archaeology.
  Richards served as the Program Head for the UNC Coastal Studies Institute's Maritime Heritage Program while a joint appointment with ECU's Department of History from 2011-2018. Dr. Richards assumed the role of Director of the Program in Maritime Studies (Department of History) at East Carolina University (Greenville, NC) in 2018. He has taught classes in the history, theory, method, and ethics of maritime archaeology, field schools, and cultural heritage management at ECU since 2003.