Jamie Ancheta ’13: Field Tech in Historical Consulting

Jamie Ancheta was born and raised in Elizabeth, N.J. and attended Upper Academy, the honors high school for the Elizabeth Public School system. She attended Montclair State University from 2009 to 2013 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and minors in Archaeology and Geoscience. Following graduation, she participated in Montclair State’s archaeological field school in East-Setauket Long Island and applied the skills she acquired in her undergrad career to a live setting. At the conclusion of the field school, she was accepted into Monmouth University’s Master of Art’s program for Anthropology. While at Monmouth she had the opportunity to manage the Archaeology lab that was processing historic artifacts from both New Jersey and Nevis in the Caribbean. During her time at Monmouth she was also the archaeological lab director for the 2014 field school in Cedar Bridge, N.J. and assisted as a Geographic Information Systems technician for Monmouth with a project involving her alma mater MSU. She also gained experience with the Cultural Resource Management firm Richard Grubb and Associates as an artifact technician. In the summer of 2014, she was the co-site director for a public archaeology program at the historic site of the Christoffel Vought House in Clinton, N.J.

Her Master’s thesis is entitled, “A Comparative Study of African American Identity Creation in Antebellum New Jersey,” in which she analyzed the structuralized racism and community progression of the 19th-century African American community of Fair Haven, N.J.

Now at 24 years old, she is working as a field and lab technician for Hunter Research, Inc., a historical consulting company that is based in Trenton, New Jersey.