I am a social archaeologist who specializes in ancient Judaism with an emphasis on society in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. My research focuses on understanding the living Jewish social network through the material culture, and how it expresses, shapes, and rebuilds identities and social structures. My published studies had dealt with the Qumran scrolls, ancient synagogues, Jewish ritual purity and ethnic and national expression in Jewish material culture in Hellenistic Judea. My Ph.D. dissertation's title is 'The Social Aspects of Judean Death and Burial in the Early Roman Period'.