Rate My Professor Katerina Douka

Katerina Douka is Associate Professor in Archaeological Science in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, since 2021. She earned a DPhil in Archaeological Science from the University of Oxford in 2011 (thesis: Investigating the Chronology of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition in Mediterranean Europe by Improved Radiocarbon Dating of Shell Ornaments), an MSc in Archaeological Science from Oxford in 2006 (dissertation: Seasonality of Neanderthal Occupation at Vanguard Cave, Gibraltar), and a BSc in Archaeological Conservation from the Technological University of Athens in 2004. A native of Greece, she has lived, studied, and worked in the UK, Spain, Egypt, and Greece. Douka's research specializes in chronometric and biomolecular methodologies applied to archaeological and palaeoenvironmental materials. Her expertise encompasses radiocarbon dating, including field sample collection, development of decontamination protocols, and statistical interpretation via Bayesian modelling of AMS results, as well as palaeoproteomics—particularly ZooMS—to probe the hominin fossil record, human dispersals and adaptations, inter-taxa interactions, and the disappearance of archaic hominins like Neanderthals and Denisovans over the past 300,000 years.

Prior roles include W2 Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany (2017-2021), Postdoctoral Researcher on the ERC Advanced Grant PalaeoChron at Oxford's Research Laboratory for Archaeology (2013-2017), and Leverhulme Trust's Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (2011-2013). She leads the Douka Lab—Austria's first specialised palaeoproteomics facility—and serves as Principal Investigator for the ERC Starting Grant FINDER on fossil fingerprinting for Denisovan remains (2017-2024), the ERC Consolidator Grant RIFT-TO-RIM tracking human dispersals from the African Rift to the Pacific (2025-2030), BONETAG for bone proteomics in Neanderthal and Denisovan genotyping (2026-2029), and DENI-CESTOR on Denisovan ancestors in Sahul (2022-2025). Awards include the 15th Tübingen Prize on Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology (2013), William Golding Junior Research Fellowship at Brasenose College, Oxford (2014-2018), British School at Athens Early Career Fellowship (2013), and multiple grants exceeding €2 million from ERC, NERC, and others. Key publications are 'The timing and spatiotemporal patterning of Neanderthal disappearance' (2014), 'Genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia' (2014), 'Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals' (2010), and 'Age estimates for hominin fossils and the onset of the Upper Palaeolithic at Denisova Cave' (2019), amassing thousands of citations and shaping debates on human evolution. Douka is an assistant editor for PNAS, teaches courses on palaeoproteomics, scientific methods in human evolution, and archaeometry, supervises PhD and MSc students, organizes conferences, peer-reviews for Nature and Science, and engages in media outreach.