Jared Koller

Graduate Student Fellow, Archaeology, College of Arts & Sciences

Jared M. Koller was named a Hariri Graduate Fellow in May, 2016. He is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Archaeology, who, for the past three years, has worked with local communities in the Philippines to investigate social and religious change through archaeology.  Mr. Koller’s research takes an archaeological approach that explores the relationship between visual and acoustic information in and around Spanish missions and plaza complexes in the Philippines from the 14th – 18th centuries CE.  Archaeologists typically focus on material culture; less well understood is how sound influenced daily life in the past.  By combining audio information with material remains, Koller’s research aims to provide a richer understanding of human motivation and behavior in the past. Prior to beginning his PhD program at Boston University, Mr. Koller served as a Researcher for the Asian Cultural History Program (ACHP), part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Anthropology Department in Washington D.C.  His work at the Smithsonian included archaeological and historical research, training international partners in collection management systems, and coordinating of cultural events for Azerbaijani, Georgian, Indonesian, Kazakhstani, Korean, and Turkmen, and Turkish communities.