Stephanie Rost (2017-2019 Visiting Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU) earned her BA at the Free University of Berlin, her MA at Vienna University, and her PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (2015). Her research interests focus on the investigation of early state economies with an emphasis on agricultural systems and political ecology. Her dissertation research was concerned with the technical and social aspects of water management of the late 3rd millennium B.C. southern Mesopotamia as a means to assess the degree of political centralization in early state societies. Her future research agenda focuses on the reconstruction of the historical geography of late 3rd millennium B.C. southern Mesopotamia to build a framework in which the rich data sets of economic documents from this period can be explored to their full potential. Her research will be based on remote sensing techniques, the collection of archaeological settlement data, textual and ethnographic data.
Stephanie Rost was trained primarily as an archaeologist and anthropologist but has a strong background in ancient languages. She adopts the approach of historical archaeology in her research by combining archaeological and textual data. Prior to joining NYU, Stephanie Rost was the 2015-2017 postdoctoral fellow at the Oriental Institute and organized the 2016 Oriental Institute Symposium on “Irrigation in Early States: New Directions” – currently in preparation for publication.
Photo Credit: "Micah Garen: Four Corners Media"