I wanted a job where I wouldn’t have to be stuck coding all the time, where I could go out and explore.” While completing his dissertation, Hamacher realized that he could carve his own niche combining astronomy and anthropology, which he envisioned would give him a competitive advantage in the academic job market. “I liked astronomy but also liked cultural studies. “I moved to Australia to do astrophysics, but was pulled over to the dark side,” he jokes. An academic in the Nura Gili Indigenous Programs Unit of The University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, he has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in astrophysics and a PhD in Indigenous Studies (with a focus on cultural astronomy) from Macquarie University in Sydney. Furthermore, some physicist/archaeologists conduct research in archeoastronomy and study how societies incorporate scientific knowledge into their culture.ĭuane Hamacher is an example of the latter. There are physicists who work on archaeological and other anthropological problems, physicists who have made career transitions into archaeology, and archaeologists who leverage their physics background to solve archaeological problems. ![]() They grieved for my choice, and declared with sadness, “That’s an interesting combination.” But I wasn’t deterred, and in fact I thrived while studying abroad in Cairo, as I pursued grant-funded research in Ancient Egyptian number theory, cryptography, and religion. Most raised an eyebrow, and I was met with puzzled faces. I saw links between the two seemingly disparate subjects, whereas my advisors and almost anyone else with whom I shared one or the other of my twin loves reacted much differently. Both subjects enthralled me - I loved the elegance and logic of math as well as the mystery and adventure of anthropology, especially archaeology. Sandy Rogers surveying in the Panamint Mountains of the Mojave Desert.Īstrophysicist-turned-anthropologist Duane Hamacher visiting StonehengeĪs an undergraduate, I pursued a double degree in mathematics and anthropology.
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