Dr. Lana Williams is a bioarchaeologist specializing in the study of human health and diet in past societies. Dr. Williams earned her PhD from the University of Western Ontario in 2008 and received the Governor General\u2019s Academic Gold Medal the following year. Since 2002, she has been part of the Dakhleh Oasis Project in Egypt, and since 2006, she has worked with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven project at Dayr al-Barsha. She also collaborates with archaeological teams across Europe, the Near East, and Mesoamerica.<\/p>\n
Dr. Williams\u2019 research examines how biological, social, and physical environments interact to shape human lives. Her work focuses on isotopic and elemental analysis of hair and other tissues, patterns of seasonality in fertility and disease, musculoskeletal biomechanics and activity, and the treatment of the dead within their physical and social landscapes.<\/p>\n
Her research has been published in journals including the American Journal of Biological Anthropology<\/em>, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology<\/em>, American Antiquity<\/em>, American Journal of Human Biology<\/em>, Journal of Archaeological Science<\/em>, and Practical Diabetes International<\/em>. She is also co-author of Forensic Recovery of Human Remains: Archaeological Approaches<\/em> (3rd ed., CRC Press, 2026), which outlines practical methods for the excavation and recovery of human remains and associated evidence from crime scenes.<\/p>\n Dr. Williams joined the UCF faculty in 2013 and regularly teaches courses such as Life and Death in Ancient Egypt<\/em>, Human Biological Diversity<\/em>, Biobehavioral Anthropology<\/em>, Anthropology of the Undead<\/em>, History of Anthropological Thought<\/em>, Forensic Archaeology Field Methods<\/em>, and the Seminar in Biological Anthropology<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Lana Williams is a bioarchaeologist specializing in the study of human health and diet in past societies. Dr. Williams earned her PhD from the University of Western Ontario in 2008 and received the Governor General\u2019s Academic Gold Medal the following year. Since 2002, she has been part of the Dakhleh Oasis Project in Egypt, […]","protected":false},"featured_media":1410,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_people_group":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"people_group":[41],"class_list":["post-3506","person","type-person","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","people_group-faculty"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person\/3506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/person"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person\/3506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6800,"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person\/3506\/revisions\/6800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3506"},{"taxonomy":"people_group","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/anthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people_group?post=3506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}