ABOUT US

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Ph.D. (Washington State University, 1985), 44 years of experience in western North America, Northeastern Africa and the Central and Eastern Mediterranean in the fields of archaeology, paleoecology, and paleoclimatology, and geomorphology. He has been shedding vital, new light on past processes in arid environments, while at the same time helping to solve some of the problems facing environmental resource managers and planners today. Using plant remains recovered from ancient packrat nests (middens) and cave and aquatic contexts, pollen and charcoal from carefully dated stratigraphic sequences, he has been able to record the dynamics of vegetation change, fire regimes, surface and groundwater fluctuation, and changes in surficial (erosion and deposition) processes on local and regional scales in the Intermountain American West. Currently, he is engaged in study of the causes of past and current landscape erosion in southern Italy. In western Iran, he has been examining the impact of landscape erosion on lake chemistry during the Holocene. This science has been presented at meetings in Denver, Athens, Rome, and Tehran. 

Ms. Bargahi, has 12 years of experience in the fields of historic archaeology, prehistoric archaeology, geoarchaeology and environmental archaeology  projects. She took part in several archaeological surveys and excavations in the central plain of Iran, and western and southern Iran, and southern Italy. She concentrated especially on the prehistory of  south western and central Iran.

Her focus  in prehistoric archaeology is  human evolution, and the early tool making traditions, and plant and animal domestication. In particular she has been very interested in how the domestication of plants and animals affected human diet, and culture, especially religion, social structure, and the arts, from the Neolithic onward. She conducted a systematic survey of the rich Neolithic and Chalcolithic site of Chahar Rustayi, which was identified and recorded in 2004 during a joint Iranian-English survey of the Persian Gulf coast led by Dr. R. A. Carter (University College London). Her research in Italy with an international team from the University of Nevada, Reno ( 2014, 2016) focused on Holocene landscape dynamics in the region lying on the Puglia and Basilicata border of the southern Mezzogiorno.

Italian PhD, Civil-Environmental Engineer with a MSc in Hydraulic Engineering and Violinist. 

Antonella Dimotta was born in Italy in 1986. She received her PhD, Winter of  2019. She comes from the Italian National Research Council and University of Basilicata (School of Agricultural School Forestry, Food and Environmental Sciences). She received her PhD in the Program of Land, Environmental and Forestry Science. Her PhD thesis focused on Applied Geomorphology (GEO/04) and Agricultural and Environmental Economics (AGR/01): SOIL EROSION INTERDISCIPLINARY OVERVIEW: Modelling Approaches, Ecosystem Services Assessment and Soil Quality Restoration: Applications and Analyses in the Basilicata region (Italy). 

In 2017, she spent over 6 months - at the Spanish National Research Council (Centro de Edafologìa y Biologìa del Segura (CEBAS) – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientìficas (CSIC)) in Murcia (Spain) under the guidance of Dr. Joris de Vente (senior researcher). Dr Dimotta's interest in landscape issues comes from her own background in the coastal fruit groves of Gulf of Taranto.  Her research has centered around soil erosion processes as they have been affected by land use and climate change, and further exogenous factors. She has applied the Soil and Water Conservation Research Group’s experience matured at the CEBAS-CSIC (Spain) and in Italy with different environmental modelling and assessment approaches. 

Her PhD on Applied Geomorphology and Agricultural and Environmental Economics comes from her strong interest in trying to observe, analyze and understand the most important factors (geological, hydro-geological, territorial and environmental vulnerability) that affect the landscape, agricultural economics, and the soil, and the well-being and human health and quality of life. Her PhD Thesis dealt with soil erosion process and its correlated different impacts, on- and off-site, with precise insights and analyses about the incidence of climate change on soil erosion modelling approaches’ development at a global scale. Moreover, she developed a potential solution aimed at restoring a soil affected by erosion through the composting application. Her answer to the Land Use and Soil Conservation Policies focuses on the need for applying a Circular Economy-based approach revised by her own idea of the compost utilization, as a smart green-therapy to try making soil more resilient. 

She is an extremely gifted violinist, having received her Violin Diploma in 2010 at the Conservatorio Statale di Musica “E.R.Duni” in Matera (Italy). In addition, her instrumental skills include the viola and piano. Her passions include composing music for the violin, piano and viola. Her further interests consist of medicine, photography and art. Recently she has begun research into the links between global change and increased skin cancer rates in human populations.

Potenza, Italy and Dublin, Ireland. April 2019 

A highly recommended Project Manager with over 15 years of experience, working within the private, public and NGO sectors. He now works as a Permaculture project manager, designer & teacher developing holistic solutions for regenerative environmental projects, trying to connect people living in cities closer with nature, their food and the available green spaces around us all.  In the Madrid, Spain, area, he consulted with the farm owners to develop new strategies, concepts and lifestyle changes to be more resilient moving forward, and helped to enhance existing businesses while providing a more holistic solution. He studied with the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia on a 70-acre farm in the subtropical region of New South Wales in Australia. Living off the grid on a holistic regenerative farm. Working with some of the best practitioners of Permaculture around the world. He has also taken an intense living soil certified course, covering all aspects of living soil. The Teacher was Paul Taylor a well renowned teacher with over 20 years experience teaching and providing soil solutions in all types of climates.

Ms. Donahue has 20+ years of professional and technical project management experience dealing with all aspects of Geospatial Technology, Cultural Resource Management (CRM), and Real Property Management. She is a certified Scrum Master and SAFe Agile SPC. Her experience includes working for both private and government agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service (U.S.F.S.), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and various tribal communities. She has worked in such diverse areas as geospatial information system (GIS) management and GeoBase programs, utilities and engineering services management, U.S.F.S. District Cultural Resource Management as well as private archaeological contracting. 

Her experience includes large utilities conversion projects from CAD to GIS for the U.S. Air Force, management, marketing, and support of GIS programs, analyzing client needs, documentation (management plans and professional presentations), utilizing strong technical, research, and problem-solving skills, outlining the benefits of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to customers as well as providing instruction, and integration of GIS into various projects and organizations.

Ms. Donahue has managed both private and government CRM projects working closely with tribal elders facilitating the following: NEPA, ARPA, NAGPRA, SHPOs, THPOs, CEQ, EIS, SIA, Section 106, the National Register, and Executive Order 11593. She completed a National Register Nomination for the Seal Beach archaeological Midden (WA State) which was the first successful nomination for Region 6 of the U.S.F.S..

Michelle is experienced with survey and mapping grade GPS and post-processing tools, RDBMS design, development, management and implementation, and needs analysis to implement a Geospatial Information System.

She is a member of URISA (GISP) as well as the Arizona Professional Land Surveyor's Association and a Washington State Certified Teacher. 

In her spare time, she works tirelessly to create and promote permacultural infrastructure on her property learned from growing up on a ranch in eastern Washington state where her great grandparents homesteaded.  Michelle is also a professional musician.