Speaker Biographies

Mr. David Ball, Minerals Management Service

Dave Ball is the Senior Marine Archaeologist and Dive Safety Officer for the Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico Region. Mr. Ball received a BA in anthropology from Sonoma State University in 1992 and a MA in anthropology from Florida State University in 1998. He has over 15 years experience in archaeology and has directed field research on both terrestrial and underwater archaeological sites across the country, including deepwater wrecks in the Gulf, inundated prehistoric sites in Florida and Washington, a Confederate ironclad in Mobile Bay, and the 1686 French shipwreck Belle in Matagorda Bay, Texas.

Dr. John R. Bratten, University of West Florida

John Bratten is the director of the Maritime Studies Program for the University of West Florida. He also serves as a nautical archaeologist and artifact conservator for the Anthropology department, and is currently overseeing the excavation of the newly-discovered 1559 de Luna wreck. He is the author of The Gondola Philadelphia and the Battle of Lake Champlain.

Mr. Brendan Burke, Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program

Originally from Amelia County in Virginia, Brendan earned a BA in Anthropology/History from Longwood University in 2003 and his MA in Historic Archaeology from the College of William and Mary in 2007. He has worked on a wide variety of terrestrial and underwater archaeological projects in Virginia, Wyoming, Utah, the Virgin Islands, and Ireland. Brendan currently works for LAMP as project archaeologist and logistical coordinator for the First Coast Maritime Archaeology Project.

Mr. Gregory D. Cook, University of West Florida

Greg conducted his undergraduate studies at Indiana University, where he spent a year abroad in the African nation of Malawi, and received his MA from Texas A&M University’s Nautical Archaeology Program, where he worked on the wreck of a colonial sloop in Jamaica on a Fulbright scholarship. He is currently completing his PhD studies at Syracuse University, where his research is focused on the excavation of a trading vessel lost off the slave fortress El Mina in Ghana. At present he serves as Research Associate at the University of West Florida, where he is involved in the excavation of the 1559 de Luna II wreck.

Mr. Pearce Paul Creasman, Texas A&M University

Dr. John De Bry, Center for Historical Archaeology

John is a paleographer specializing in 16th-18th century French, Spanish, and English manuscripts. He has conducted extensive archival research in European repositories. John is also an accomplished archaeologist and has participated in a number of excavations in the U.S., the Caribbean, South America, Madagascar, and the Philippines. He holds a MA in history and a doctorate in Post-Medieval History. He currently serves as the Director of the Center for Historical Archaeology.

Ms. Amanda Evans, Tesla Offshore Inc.

Amanda Evans is an underwater archaeologist with ten years of experience in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. She serves as the Senior Marine Archaeologist for Tesla Offshore, LLC., a full-service geophysical survey company based in Prairieville, Louisiana. Amanda holds a Masters degree in Anthropology from Florida State University and is completing her PhD at Louisiana State University. She is the lead archaeologist for a multi-disciplinary team investigating submerged prehistoric sites in the central and western Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Frederick Hanselmann, Indiana University

Fritz Hanselmann is a Lecturer with the Indiana University Office of Underwater Science and a Research Associate with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University. He is currently working on projects in the Dominican Republic, Panama, and California, and his dissertation research is focused on the investigation of a shipwreck site in the Dominican Republic believed to be that of Captain Kidd.

Dr. Chris Horrell, Minerals Management Service

Dr. Christopher Horrell is a Marine Archaeologist with the Minerals Management Service. Dr. Horrell graduated from Southwest Texas State University with a Bachelors degree in Anthropology and History. Continuing his graduate studies, he received a Masters degree in Anthropology from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Florida State University. Dr. Horrell has over 14 years of experience organizing and directing field projects on both terrestrial and underwater sites, including a 19th century centerboard schooner near Dog Island, Florida; an early 19th century underwater deposit in the Apalachicola River, and several historic and prehistoric sites along Florida’s coast.

Dr. Kira Kaufmann, Florida Public Archaeology Network, Southeast Region

Kira received her masters degree from Florida State University and her PhD from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. She has worked on a wide variety of underwater archaeological sites, both submerged prehistoric sites and historic shipwrecks. She is currently faculty at Florida Atlantic University and Marine Archaeologist for the Florida Public Archaeology Network’s Southeast Regional Center.

Ms. Friedmann, GTM-NERR volunteer

Peggy Friedmann is a scuba diver and former professor of English who is writing a biography of Cora Crane, Stephen Crane’s common-law wife. She lives in South Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

Kendra Kennedy, University of West Florida

Kendra Kennedy is a graduate student in Historical Archaeology at the University of West Florida. Her interests include the interaction of Africans, Europeans and Native Americans during the colonial period as well as the use of remote sensing in maritime archaeology. Her thesis will investigate the historic maritime landscape of the Pensacola Waterfront.

Christine Maverick, University of West Florida

Christine Mavrick attends the University of West Florida where she is a graduate student of anthropology, concentrating on underwater archaeology and archaeological conservation. She supervises the Archaeology Conservation Lab under Dr. John Bratten and is writing a thesis on her experiments with waterlogged wood recovered from Little Salt Spring in Sarasota County, Florida.

Chuck Meide, Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program

Chuck was born and raised in the coastal town of Atlantic Beach, Florida, in Duval County north of St. Augustine. He attended Florida State University for his BA (1993) and MA (2001) degrees in Anthropology with a focus on Underwater Archaeology, and is currently completing his PhD research through the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He has worked on maritime archaeological sites throughout Florida and also in Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Vermont, Bermuda, a number of Caribbean islands, and Ireland. Chuck is also an active NAUI scuba instructor, and taught basic and scientific diving courses at the FSU Academic Diving Program from 1992 to 2000. Since 2006 he has served as Director of LAMP at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum.

David Moore, North Carolina Maritime Museum

David is the Keynote Speaker for the Symposium. He completed graduate work in maritime history and nautical archaeology in the early 1980s and traveled to Florida to work on a number of shipwrecks including the Spanish galleons San Martin (1618) and Atocha (1622), the English slave ship Henrietta Marie (1700), and the English merchantman Spring of Whitby (c.1824). He also directed the first deep water excavation of a shipwreck utilizing robotic technology, the probable Spanish patache Buen Jesus lost in 1622 in 400 meters of water off the Dry Tortugas. Moore completed his Master’s degree at East Carolina University with a thesis on the slaver Henrietta Marie in 1989 and curated a major traveling exhibition on the ship that has traveled around the country and abroad since 1995. He is currently the Curator of Nautical Archaeology at the North Carolina Maritime Museum where he has worked primarily on the Blackbeard Shipwreck Project and excavating the pirate’s flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge for the past twelve years.

Dr. Roger Smith, Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research

Dr. Roger C. Smith is Florida's State Underwater Archaeologist. He worked on shipwrecks throughout the Caribbean before graduating from Texas A&M University with a Ph.D. in nautical archaeology. Roger returned to Florida to take up the post of chief underwater archaeologist in 1987. He is the author of three books and dozens of professional and popular articles.

Dr. David Switzer, Plymouth State University

A true pioneer in the field of nautical archaeology, Dave Switzer grew up in Maine and graduated from the University of Maine with a BA in history and received an MA and PhD in history from the University of Connecticut. He retired from Plymouth State University (formerly Plymouth State College) in 2004 after a thirty-nine year career as a professor of history and recognized as a Distinguished Teacher. Since 1980 he has served as the Consulting Nautical Archaeologist for the State of New Hampshire. In that capacity he has directed a number of nautical and maritime archaeological projects including the excavation of a 17th century shallop-type vessel, the remains of a unique bridge constructed by a Shaker community, and an investigation and documentation of a early 20th century lake steamer. Dr. Switzer is also the author of “The Defence Project in The Archaeology of Ships of War vol. II, M. Bound ed. 2001 and “Excavating a Colonial Privateer” in Beneath the Seven Seas, George Bass, ed. 2005.

Dr. Sam Turner

Sam traveled extensively in Latin America with his family as a child and spent many years living in both Argentina and Puerto Rico. He received a BA in History as a Social Science from Antioch College, his MA in the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University, and received his Ph.D. in Spanish and Spanish American Studies from King’s College of the University of London in 1999. Dr. Turner has worked on shipwrecks and terrestrial maritime sites in the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. He also conducts extensive research in numerous archives and repositories in Europe and the United States working with both English and Spanish documents. Since 2006 he has served as the Director of Archaeology for LAMP at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum.

Ms. Wendy Welsh, North Carolina Office of State Archaeology

Wendy Welsh is the Lab Manager & Field Conservator for the Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project. Wendy is based out of the North Carolina Queen Anne’s Revenge Archaeological Conservation Laboratory located in Greenville, NC where all of the artifacts recovered from the shipwreck are housed and conserved. She has been working for the project since 2002.