▼
Georgetown360

Mel Smith

Mel Smith joined the PhD program in 2025. Their research focuses on climate and environmental change in late antiquity, focusing especially on the movement of the “barbarians” around the Black Sea and Danube Basin region. In using a transdisciplinary approach that employs historical texts, palaeoclimatogical records, and bioarchaeological data, Mel has also developed a curiosity for the broader cross-disciplinary questions that these combined methodologies raise. Currently, they are working on projects concerning the movement of the Huns and Avars across the Danube River, exploring how isotopic analysis of faunal remains can act as proxies for humans’ relationship to local ecologies, and speculating on the pitfalls and perils of transdisciplinary scholarship, particularly in late antique studies. Mel holds a BA in Medieval Studies from Georgetown University and an MPhil in Archaeology from St. John’s College, Cambridge.