Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World

Talia Smith received a BA magna cum laude in Archaeology and French from Tufts University in 2020, and a MA mention très bien in Art History and Archaeology from the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 2024. She has been excavating the Roman and Medieval city of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges in southern France since 2022, where she is a member of the research team and a trench supervisor. Talia has also excavated in central and southern Italy and currently participates in the Porta Nocera Necropolis Project at Pompeii. Off the field, she has completed internships at the departmental archaeology museum of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges and at the Centre Jean Bérard in Naples. Her own research focuses on religious experience in antiquity, with a geographical focus on Roman France. Specifically, she is interested in ritual, how it engages with and leaves traces in the material world, and how these traces speak to group identities and cultural change. Talia is also interested in the use and reception of heritage, the mediation of archaeological knowledge, as well as topography and geospatial analyses.