Chiara Pappalardo is a Ph.D. candidate in Sciences of Cultural Heritage and Production at the University of Catania, where she graduated with a Master’s Degree (Distinction) in Archaeology, with a major in Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. 

She spent part of her studies at the University of Vienna and worked as research assistant at the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. 

Since 2012 she has joined international archaeological projects as fellow field archaeologist across Israel, Turkey and Azerbaijan, gaining experience especially with the material culture and archaeological landscapes of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Currently she is a member of the Azerbaijani-Italian Ganja Region Kurgan Archaeological Project (GaRKAP) and collaborates with projects in the fields of funerary and cognitive archaeology in the ancient Near East. 

Her research aims at investigating the ancestral landscapes of (semi)nomadic societies, and at proposing a theoretical and methodological model to interpret their funerary behaviors through a phenomenological-cognitive approach and the use of historical aerial imagery, alongside with modern technologies for the reconstruction of ancient landscapes.