Mariana Castro is an aridlands archaeologist and leader in grassroots ecological movements. She received a BA with Honors in Archaeology and Asian Studies from Brigham Young University, where she focused on Classical and Chinese history, languages, and archaeology. During her Master's degree at the University of Oxford—which she attended as an Ertegun Scholar—Mariana enriched her knowledge of the Hellenistic and Roman periods and received a Distinction for effectively engaging with the fields of landscape and frontier archaeology, geographical information systems, and site management and protection. Her MPhil dissertation, entitled The Function of the Roman Army in Southern Arabia Petraea (Archeopress 2018) was completed in cooperation with the EAMENA and APAAME Oxford-based projects and used a variety of digital resources to map and model the system of fortifications, settlements, and trade routes that had controlled resources and movement in the deserts of southern Jordan in ancient times.
At ISAW, Mariana continues to focus on the archaeology of mobility, interaction, and extractivism in pre-Islamic landscapes, particularly through the lenses of marginality and the material underpinnings of long-distance connectivity across ancient Central Eurasia. Her dissertation project, entitled "Turquoise, the Stepping Stone of Eurasia: Ancient Connectivity, Peripheral Landscapes, and Pastoralist Economies in Central Eurasia BCE," employs turquoise as a proxy to provide a broader understanding of "Silk Roads" and the role of desert/steppe actors in Eurasian history. She acts as the field director for the Resourcescapes of the Kyzylkum Project, a detachment of the Uzbek-American Expedition to Bukhara funded by the UNESCO Youth Research Grant, the American Philosophical Society, and the Ranieri Foundation.
Besides her academic expertise, she has participated in numerous archaeological field projects in Egypt, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Iraq, the United States, Belize, Portugal, Croatia, and Greece, most directly concerning long-distance trade and exchange. Currently, Mariana is also deeply invested in the interaction between academia, NGOs, and governments, and seeks ways to better integrate digital technologies, cultural heritage studies, and international development into her archaeological practice.