Leah Tavasi

Dynamic Earth - Geomorphology and Landscape Dynamics

Leah is completing her PhD in Environmental Research funded by the UKRI Oxford-NERC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) in Geography and Archaeology.

She is interested in combining maritime archaeology with marine ecology and biology, focusing on spatial correlation between heritage and species diversity and richness. She hopes to combine traditional maritime archaeological methods with marine ecological methods in an interdisciplinary thesis, one which will be based in GIS. She is part of both OCMA (Oxford Center for Maritime Archaeology) and the Seascape Ecology Lab, in the Archaeology and Geography departments respectively.

Prior to joining the NERC DTP, she completed her master's degree in 2022 at the University of Oxford in maritime archaeology with Damian Robinson, focusing on maritime archaeology of the Mediterranean. She worked as a Maritime Archaeologist at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum from 2017-2023, and has been affiliated with multiple projects from the Mediterranean to the US. She is a PADI Specialty Instructor and DAN Instructor, and has worked as a research diver and volunteer at the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF) in Key Largo, Florida. She received her bachelors degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in 2016.

• Does Evidence for Jewish Pirates Exist Archaeologically? A Case Study of Sinan Reis. ACUA Underwater Archaeology Proceedings, January 2023.