John Hastings (his wife Christie to the left) served as a volunteer at the Ban Chiang Project from 1978 to 2002. He designed and oversaw the movement of the huge Ban Chiang data from the original mainframe to PCs, as well as serving as the earliest IT department for the entire Penn Museum. John’s contribution—as a computer expert, as a clear thinker, and as a donor— to the success of the Ban Chiang Project cannot be overstated.

UpDATE Articles by John:
Issue #16 “Ban Chiang’s Archaeo-Database”
Issue #11 “Archaeocomputing?”

Bill Henderson (his wife Barbara to the left) has been a volunteer for the Ban Chiang Project for over 17 years. In his former life, Bill was a partner in a graphic arts company that designed and produced flexographic printing plates for the shipping container industry. Bill started volunteer work at the Penn Museum in 1992 on the Ban Chiang Project, where he worked primarily on developing a ceramic rim typology with data from the Sakon Nakhon Basin, the area of the Ban Chiang excavations. He participated in archaeological digs in the USA and elsewhere before going to Laos. In Laos, his talents supported MMAP teams in the field and in the lab, and included artifact processing, database entry, video documentation and a quietly humorous outlook for every occasion. Sadly, Bill passed away in January 2010, but will be remembered for his hard work and dedication to both projects.

Check out Bill’s YouTube video from the 2005 season, “A taste of Luang Prabang”.

UpDATE Articles by Bill:
Issue #15 “Snake Soup”
Issue #13 “MMAP 2005: An Expedition to Laos Through Museum Volunteers’ Eyes”
Issue #12 “Island Adventure”
Issue #8 “My Melakan Experience”
Issue #1 “Spotlight Volunteer”

UpDATE Article about Bill:
Issue #17 “Bill Henderson: Volunteer of the Year”

Heather Saeger is a former volunteer for the Ban Chiang Project. She began her work here at the Ban Chiang Project in June 2008 and worked through August 2009 despite her full-time job at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her first task was organizing the BC offices with Sasha, but her most important work was scanning and archiving the thousands of slides, negatives, and photos of the BC Project. Heather is currently working on her Master’s degree in Museum Studies at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Thank you, Heather, for all of your hard work!

David Chamberlin Smith began volunteering for the Ban Chiang Project in April 2010. David’s primary focus is on digitally photographing the small find artifacts from the original field seasons. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico, where he learned to love both the field and laboratory aspects of archaeological research. His current hobbies include evolutionary theory and photography.

Beth Van Horn has vol­unteered with the Ban Chi­ang Project for over five years. She retired from Verizon in 2003, where she was a new product manager in the Marketing de­partment. Beth was responsible for the MMAP 2005 website and the internet ‘blog’ that followed the team’s progress. She returned to Laos in 2009 and wrapped up the season by participating in an ambitious exhibit in Lu­ang Prabang that summarized 5 years of MMAP work in Laos.

Stephanie White graduated in the summer of 2008 with a BSc (Hons) in Archaeological Sciences from Bristol University (England). She spent ten weeks helping with the digital archiving of images from the Ban Chiang Project. Upon her return to England she intends to apply for Master’s programs in Museology, and to look for further opportunities to work in museums. Many thanks to you as well, Stephanie!

Rita DeAngelo was a work-study artist with the Ban Chiang Project from 2004 through 2007. She started her illustrations by making a carefully measured pencil drawing of the object on graph paper. The final illustration is then completed on vellum paper using a stippling technique with lines and carefully placed dots of ink. Check out some examples of Rita’s illustrations on her website. Read more about being an Archaeological Illustrator in the article: “Spotlight Rita DeAngelo”. Since leaving the Museum, Rita has been working for theaters and shops as their paint charge, designing/painting scenery for local Philadelphia plays and various national museum exhibits. She is currently living in Chicago attending the School of the Art Institute’s post-baccalaureate program.

Connie Ko is a sophomore at Penn and has been a work-study student at the Ban Chiang Project since September 2008. Last year, she replaced Sasha Renninger as the Ban Chiang Project Bibliographer. She entered new and looked up old resources on Southeast Asia and compiled them in our bibliographic database. In the fall of 2009, Connie worked on the Ban Chiang Digital Archives Project. She left the Project at the end of 2009 to concentrate on her studies at Penn.

Elena Nikolova graduated from Penn in 2010 from the College of Arts and Sciences with a major in International Relations. She worked at the Ban Chiang Project her senior year (2009-10) as the bibliographer for the Southeast Asian Bibliographic Database. She spent the Spring semester of her junior year abroad in Paris, France where she conducted independent research on French-Libyan historical relations at the Sciences Po Library.

Yanik Ruiz-Ramon graduated from Penn in 2010 with a major in Communications. He started his work at the Ban Chiang Project in 2006 as the bibliographer for the Southeast Asian Bibliographic Database. Yanik is also interested in film production, photography, and languages. He went to Laos as part of MMAP 2008 and served as a videographer.

Sasha Renninger served as a bibliographer for two years and also as the first digital archivist for the Ban Chiang Project. She graduated from Penn in 2009 with a BA in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Anthropology and has excavated in both the US and Egypt. She is currently a research assistant for the Penn Cultural Heritage Center.