Rachel Nicholls - PhD Archaeology 

 

Faculty of Humanities and Social Science 

Biography

“I decided to take a PhD because I wanted to develop my skills further and become more involved with archaeology as a profession,” says Rachel Nicholls from Southampton who hopes to become a lecturer in Practical and Classical Archaeology. “Once I was offered the opportunity to do fieldwork in Egypt the choice became obvious!

“My PhD focuses on a site just north east of Cairo,” she explains. “Kafr Hassan Dawood contains a Protodynastic and early Dynastic cemetery as well as some Ptolemaic buildings and dwellings. My research will look at the logistical set up of a field school there, examining both pedagogical aspects and training techniques. I will be interviewing students and following their progress through the field school into the working world, assessing whether the skills they have acquired have helped in their career development.

“During my research I will be working with the Managing Director of the Egyptian Cultural Heritage Organisation who is also an honorary Research Fellow at the University of Winchester. He has offered to introduce me to other colleagues in Egypt, which will definitely help with connections in the future.

“The Department of Archaeology at Winchester is a friendly place and the staff are helpful and treat me as a colleague, which makes working with them as a research student very comfortable. In addition, Winchester has an active research community and even though I’m only in my first year of my PhD, I’ve already been able to develop my research skills, improve my presentation techniques and bounce ideas off other research students from across the University.”