Director of Education, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology
He/him/his
About
Will Pestle is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in the lifeways of the ancient Indigenous peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. His research (supported by the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Wenner-Gren Foundation, among others) has focused on topics including subsistence, human-environment interaction, mobility, exchange, and the emergence of social complexity, resulting in over 70 publications.
In addition to conducting fieldwork in Tunisia, Israel, Greece, Puerto Rico, and Chile, Will has held a variety of museum roles, from collections-based research on four continents to six years in collections management at the Field Museum of Natural History to curating exhibitions at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, where he was a professor and department chair.
Will has recently returned to the University of Michigan and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, where he began his archaeological adventures as a student employee almost 30 years ago.