Aja Lans, Investigating the remains of Black people curated in Harvard’s Peabody Museum

Aja Lans is a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University as part of the Inequality in America Initiative. She completed her PhD in anthropology and cultural heritage preservation at Syracuse University with funding from the Ford Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. Her research integrates Black feminist and critical race theory into bioarchaeological investigations. Also of interest are the ethics of museum collections, the objectification of human remains, and the history of race. She is currently investigating the remains of Black people curated in Harvard’s Peabody Museum with support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Outside of the academy, she consults as a bioarchaeologist on CRM projects in New York City.