Rate My Professor Alexia Smith

Alexia Smith is an Associate Professor and Undergraduate Honors Advisor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut, where she also serves as Director of the Archaeobotany Laboratory. She earned her Ph.D. in 2005 from Boston University. Her research specializes in archaeobotany, focusing on the long-term dynamics of food production, agriculture, climate change, and social organization from the transition between hunting-and-gathering to farming in Southwest Asia. This includes studies on sustainable agriculture, food equity, the archaeology of food and bread across regions such as Syria, Turkey, and Armenia, spanning the Epipalaeolithic, Neolithic, Ubaid, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age periods. The Archaeobotany Lab, equipped with advanced microscopes, SEM, and other tools, supports analysis of macro- and microbotanical remains, dung spherulites, and fuel use, hosting reference collections and training students in archaeobotanical methods.

Smith's contributions include numerous peer-reviewed publications, such as 'Epipalaeolithic animal tending to Neolithic herding at Abu Hureyra, Syria (12,800–7,800 calBP): Deciphering dung spherulites' (PLoS ONE, 2022, co-authored with Oechsner, Rowley-Conwy, and Moore); 'Archaeobotanical and dung spherulite evidence for Ubaid and Late Chalcolithic fuel, farming, and feasting at Surezha, Iraqi Kurdistan' (Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2022, with Proctor and Stein); 'Expanding the plain: using archaeobotany to examine adaptation to the 5.2 kya climate change event during the Anatolian Late Chalcolithic at Çadır Höyük' (Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021, with von Baeyer and Steadman); 'Isotope evidence for agricultural extensification reveals how the world’s first cities were fed' (Nature Plants, 2017, with Styring et al.); and 'Ubaid Plant Use at Tell Zeidan, Syria' (Paléorient, 2015, with Graham and Stein). She participates in projects including Archaeology of Food and Bread Across Southwest Asia, Areni-1 Cave early wine production, Kurd Qaburstan Bronze Age foodways, Tell Zeidan early social complexity, and Abu Hureyra flotation residues. Recognized for mentorship, she received the UConn Honors Faculty Member of the Year Award (2021–2022), Alpha Lambda Delta Faculty of the Year Award (2025), UConn Humanities Institute Faculty Residential Fellowship (2010–2011), and Fulbright Fellowship (1997–1998). She teaches courses such as ANTH 3706/5706 Archaeobotany, ANTH 5707 Quantitative Archaeobotany, and ANTH 5708 Plants and People through the Ages, and supervises graduate students including Krista Dotzel, Philip Graham, and Lucas Proctor.