Meet the Team

As co-founder and Managing Director at DigVentures, Lisa has found the perfect place to combine archaeology with over twenty years of professional experience in communications, finance and journalism, including several years as Editor of Current Archaeology magazine. With a Master’s degree in Archaeology from UCL and a prestigious Clore Fellowship under her belt, she now focuses her energy wrangling field archaeologists and harnessing brilliant creative sector innovations for DV. She is an international speaker on crowdfunding for the creative and cultural sectors, and leads on the consultancy aspect of DV’s work. She is responsible for the Americanisms, absurdly strong site coffee and early morning DV dance parties.

Brendon is an award-winning field archaeologist with over 15 years experience directing and managing large, complex sites in advance of major construction projects, such as motorways, pipelines, and railways. With a consistent research and publication record, he has lectured internationally on wetland archaeology, Irish archaeology, and new advances in excavation methodology. He has directed sites as varied as an historic cock-fighting pit, a large Roman building, and a complicated multiphase wetland site at Newrath, Co. Kilkenny, a site dug in such wet and windy winter conditions, he swears it was the moment he started to lose his hair! Brendon is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Leicester, entitled: ‘Digging the Crowd: the future of archaeology in the digital and collaborative economies’.

Chris is a tech-loving field archaeologist who has supervised academic and commercial excavations for over ten years. He specializes in excavation and recording methodology and digital survey techniques with a particular interest in using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Photogrammetry to create new and immersive digital data visualisations. One of his faves is a digital model of excavations at North Killingholme (comprising over 10,000 contexts) that enables analysts to see the spread of any artefact type across the site at the click of a button. He never really stops working, but when he does, he likes cricket and gardening.

Maggie graduated from the University of British Columbia with a BA in Anthropology in 2010, and completed her MA in Archaeology for Screen Media from the University of Bristol in 2012. After digging around in Jordan and England on academic and commercial excavations, she took a brief hiatus from digging holes and helped film DigVentures’ online course on How To Do Archaeology. Now she is a Community Archaeologist with DV for the Elmswell project. She is particularly interested in stone tools, and always likes to stay on the cutting edge. She brings with her an encyclopedic knowledge of baked goods, Canadian celebrities and great archaeology puns.

Having honed her craft in commercial archaeology, Manda joins DV following a five-year stint developing membership engagement for the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists and several years managing the Professional Archaeology programme at the University of Birmingham. Manda’s main focus is delivering DV’s project schedule, developing educational and training programmes, keeping the team on track and making sure we are happy as we work. Since completing her PhD in 2004, Manda is proud to retain the enviable position of being able to distinguish a Shetland soapstone vessel from its Norwegian counterpart, and continues to research these humble Viking artefacts to this day. She loves getting the best out of talented people, far flung Scottish islands, and all things Scandinavian.

Ben is an evolutionary biologist, author and broadcaster. With a degree in Animal Behaviour, Masters in Wild Animal Biology and a NERC-funded PhD entitled ‘Primates of the Caribbean’, he has worked across the world with a range of species, with a focus on great apes and other primates. Ben is an award-winning BBC science broadcaster, presenting, among other things, ‘Secrets of Bones’, ‘The Day the Dinosaurs Died’ and ‘Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur’. Ben is an accomplished public speaker and as well as having given a TEDx talk, is a regular at both science and literary festivals around the UK. Throughout his career, Ben has both chased and been chased by more monkeys and apes than he can remember and believes the key to his success is by keeping these two numbers roughly even.

Stephen served as an Aircraft Maintenance Officer in the United States Air Force prior to entering the world of academia. He holds MA degrees in both Theology and Archaeology and is set to complete a PhD at Durham University later this year. He helped to establish the American Veterans Archaeological Recovery program in 2016 because it allows him to engage in his two favourite pastimes: helping the troops and digging very precise holes in the ground. He is addicted to Sour Cream and Onion Pringles.

With two decades of archaeological experience in diverse countries such as Britain, Ireland, France, Cyprus, Italy and Albania, Stuart is familiar with the global legislation, technical structure, political and operational criteria for heritage and archaeology projects. As well as project and strategic framework design and management, Stuart has an extensive track record in museums archaeology. He is a subject area expert in the Bronze Age of the UK’s northwest region. Stuart has worked on so many he sites he is starting to feel like a Grandfather of archaeology and he is starting to look like one too.

Maiya graduated from UCL with an MSc in Skeletal and Dental Bioarchaeology. She’s worked on excavations as far afield as Rwanda, Spain, the Caribbean and Coventry. After a year working in commercial archaeology, Maiya leapt into the City, carving out a niche as a marketing and communications consultant. Having axed her way through a jungle of small print and complex policy conditions to build a culture of customer-friendly communication, Maiya’s back to the field with a trowel in one hand and a twitter feed in the other. Maiya was DV’s first-ever employee and we love her to bits!

Harriet graduated from the University of Aberdeen with a BA in Archaeology in 2014, following which she began a career in the banking and finance industry. It wasn’t long before she came to her senses and realised that archaeology was her true calling, following which she joined DigVentures as an intern writing blog posts and content for social media. She has now joined the team full time as Community Archaeologist for the Coldingham project. In her spare time she enjoys collecting every kind of tea she can get her hands on, photography and being outdoors hillwalking.

Johanna recently finished her Master’s degree in Sustainable Heritage Management in Denmark. She has been a researcher for a television documentary about Saint Wendelin, has helped produce interactive history events and, after completing an internship with DigVentures, has now joined the team as the Community Archaeologist responsible for the Barrowed Time project. She has a special interest in finds and post-excavation processes, and a passion for lists and organising things.

Emily is not an archaeologist…although after spending six years working on Time Team, she definitely picked up a thing or two! Emily studied graphic Design and Advertising before moving into the television industry, and can definitely tell a few hair-raising stories about her days producing music videos. Her real passion in life is cooking, and she now splits her time between organising people in and out of muddy holes with running one of London’ most popular supper clubs. As expected, she is an insanely good cook.

Fergus is the world’s finest archaeological dog. A natural risk-taker and entrepreneurial spirit, Fergus has displayed a keen interest in digging and a fine nose for interesting buried things since birth. A key member of the DigVentures team, Fergus is responsible for on site security, leisure activities, and finding chips on a Friday night. He does not believe in meetings, panels, working groups, forms, reports or KPIs, and has been known to accept bribes for access to the team.

I’m not sure what I’m good at yet in achaeologeeeee but everything is SUPER EXCITING and do you like my hair though?