Arin Nicole Anderson is a graduate student at Harvard University studying ancient Egypt. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Hendrix College in 2016, followed by a Master of Arts in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from Indiana University in 2021. Her master’s thesis focused on a single object—a cippus—and how photogrammetry, reflectance transformation imaging (RTI), and digital epigraphy could enrich understandings of items within museum collections. Her interest in Egypt focusses on the Late Period (664-332 BCE) and includes questions of trade and production. Specifically of interest for Anderson are questions concerning how the proletariat acquired and processed the goods for clothing, eating, drinking, and other daily life activities. Her primary focus is on the common people and the items they would have interacted with on a daily basis.

Her interests in the digital humanities are oriented around public education and museum collections. This includes but is not limited to 3D models of objects in museum collections using photogrammetry, RTI to increase readability of inscriptions, digital epigraphy to collate inscriptions, and ArcGIS to visualize cities and landscapes.

Anderson has presented on the application of new technology in ancient studies at conferences. In 2019 she presented a poster on the application of the program Anki for learning ancient languages. In 2021, she presented her research for her master’s thesis as part of a panel concerning technology in ancient studies.

Research Interests: Ancient Egyptian history, trade, daily life, museums and public education, and the application of digital technologies to research and teaching