Education
Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2018
M.S., Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012
B.A., Anthropology, Penn State University, 2009
Areas of Expertise
Experimental Archaeology
Community Organization
Gender
Lithic Technology
Use-Wear Analysis
Geographic Information Systems
Cultural Resource Management
Archaeological Collections Management
Biography
Dr. Sterner is an anthropological archaeologist studying community organization and stone tool manufacture and use among pre-contact Native American groups in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. She is a proponent of public archaeology, collaborative interpretation with descendant communities, and engagement with the avocational archaeologists. Dr. Sterner is the director of the Baltimore Community Archaeology Lab. She regularly conducts field work in Baltimore City and County Parks.
Dr. Sterner received her B.A. in Anthropology at Penn State University in 2009. She completed her M.S. in 2012 and her Ph.D. in Anthropology from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2018. Before becoming a professor at Towson University, she was a principal investigator for Cultural Resource Management Services at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Publications
- 2022 "Combining Avocational Collections and Field Survey: Investigations at the Diehl-Dietz Site in Southern York County, Pennsylvania," Archaeology of Eastern North America 50, 99-108.
- 2022 "Refining Interpretations of the Conowingo Site (18CE14): Ground Stone Analysis of the Stearns Collection," North American Archaeologist 43:3, 249-272.
- 2020 “Upper Mississippian Stone Tools and Community Organization,” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology Occasional Papers 4, 27-46.
- 2020 w/ Robert J. Jeske and Richard W. Edwards, IV “New Perspectives from Lake Koshkonong,” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology Occasional Papers 4, 1-26.
- 2019 w/ Madeleine McLeester, Mark Schurr, and Robert Ahlrichs “Marine Shell Working in Protohistoric Northern Illinois,” American Antiquity 87:3, 549-558.
- 2017 w/ Robert J. Jeske “A Multi-Method Approach to Inferring Early Agriculturalists’ Stone Tool Use at the Crescent Bay Hunt Club Site,” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 41:2, 1-27.
- 2015 w/ Robert J. Jeske “Microwear Analysis of Bipolar Tools from the Crescent Bay Hunt Club Site (47Je904),” Lithic Technology 40:4, 366-376.