Anna Walas

Honorary Research Fellow and Community Archaeology Liaison Officer, University of Nottingham
I joined the University of Nottingham as a Faculty of Arts Knowledge Exchange and Impact Officer in 2017. I oversee and provide advice on knowledge exchange, research impact and public engagement within the Faculty of Arts. My areas of specialism include heritage and place-based KE, community engagement in research and collaborations with galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM sector). I am also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Classics and Archeology and I am currently the Community Archeology Liaison Officer as part of the AHRC Nottingham City of Caves project.

Born in Poland, I completed my first degree in Archaeology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland and then received an MPhil from the University of Cambridge in Roman Archaeology and a PhD in Roman Archaeology at the University of Leicester. During my PhD, I taught fieldwork and and acted as the finds officer during University of Leicester student excavation of the Iron Age hill fort of Burrough Hill. I worked at the University of Leicester first as a Graduate Teaching Associate teaching Roman archeology and archeological theory. Later, I worked in the area of schools engagement activities with Humanities disciplines and taught A Level Summer Schools in Archeology for Widening Participation students, before joining the University of Nottingham.

Since 2019, I am the Deputy Director of the Honor Frost Foundation, British Academy (as a Co-I) and the Levantis Foundation funded Ancient Akrotiri Project, which through fieldwork aims to better understand the maritime history of the Akrotiri peninsula in the Imperial and Byzantine periods. My work involves heading up the community engagement work, working across the RAF military, local Cypriot and ex-pat communities in the area. In 2017, AAP was the runner up for Ministry of Defence's Sanctuary Award in the Heritage category.

Since 2020, I am the invited editor of two new discoveries sections for the journal Britannia, covering the areas of Hadrian's Wall and Northern England. Since 2022, I am the chair of Theoretical Roman Archeology Conference. As of 2019, I am also a member of the Bratislava Group, an advisory body to the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site serial property.