Rate My Professor Glenys McGowan

Dr. Glenys McGowan is an Honorary Fellow/Lecturer and Honorary Lecturer in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland. She earned her PhD in 2007 from the School of Social Science, University of Queensland, with a thesis titled "Deterioration of human remains and artefacts in the cemetery environment: a study of archaeological materials excavated from the nineteenth century North Brisbane Burial Ground, Lang Park, Queensland." Her Honours thesis in 1991 from the School of Physical Sciences at the same university focused on "The mineralogy and geochemistry of the Mica Creek pegmatites, Mount Isa, Northwest Queensland." From 2011 to 2014, she served as a Sessional Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Queensland. She is affiliated with the Justice and Society research cluster in the School of Social Science.

Glenys McGowan's academic interests center on archaeology, with specializations in forensic archaeology, historical burial practices, cemetery preservation, and geoarchaeological analyses. Her key publications include "A method for calculating soil pressure overlying human burials" (Journal of Archaeological Science, 2015, with Jonathan Prangnell), "Identifying a burns victim 150 years after death" (International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2020, with Prangnell), "Soil temperature calculation for burial site analysis" (Forensic Science International, 2009, with Prangnell), and "The significance of vivianite in archaeological settings" (Geoarchaeology, 2006, with Prangnell). Additional works examine nineteenth-century Australian burial artefacts, such as "'The Truth Will Out': Recycling of Packing Timber to Construct a Nineteenth Century Australian Coffin" (Australian Archaeology, 2009), "Nineteenth-century buttons from the North Brisbane Burial Ground" (Australasian Historical Archaeology, 2011), and "Economy and respectability: textiles from the north Brisbane burial ground" (International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2013). Recent research involves international collaborations, including "The life and death of cremated infants and children from the Neo-Punic tophet at Zita, Tunisia" (Antiquity, 2024) and "Diachronic change in imperial-era waterproof lining technology: evidence from Pompeii, the Bay of Naples and Rome" (Journal of Archaeological Science, 2025). In recognition of her teaching excellence, she received the 2016 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Teaching and Learning Award at the University of Queensland. She has contributed to pedagogical innovation through "Object based learning in the social sciences: three approaches to haptic knowledge making" (Teaching Anthropology, 2022).