Heather Richards-Rissetto

Assistant Professor, Anthropology

840 OLDH
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0368
402-472-7975
richards-rissetto@unl.edu

Heather Richards-Rissetto is an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Maya of Central America. She is Assistant Professor in Anthropology and a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. She uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and 3D visualization to investigate how the accessibility and visibility of architecture communicated information and structured social experience in past societies. Her current interests involve using gesture-based and immersive technologies such as Microsoft Kinect, Leap Motion, and Oculus Rift for digital humanities research. Since 2005, she has been working at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Copan, Honduras. Her interests also include using digital technology to enrich archaeological education and promote cultural heritage. She has also been involved in fieldwork at archaeological sites in Belize, Peru, Spain, and the U.S. Southwest. Her publications include articles on digital heritage, archaeological GIS, 3D WebGIS, and ancient landscape experience.

Heather is the GIS Director of the MayaArch3D Project (http://mayaarch3d.org)—an international, interdisciplinary project founded to explore the possibilities of 3D digital tools and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for research on ancient Maya architecture and landscapes. The MayaArch3D Project has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, UNESCO, Gerta Henkel Foundation, National Science Foundation, and the German Ministry of Education and Research.

Previously, she held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the HUMlab at Umeå University in Sweden and was a National Science Foundation (NSF) International Postdoctoral Fellow at the 3D Optical Metrology Unit (3DOM) at the Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK) in Trento, Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico (2010).

Heather Richards-Rissetto