Kathryn Sampeck

Kathryn Sampeck serves as Associate Professor of Anthropology at Illinois State University and holds an associate position with Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

Her research investigates colonial encounters through archaeological and ethnohistorical lenses, specializing in cultural landscapes, racial formation, literacy practices, monetary systems, and commodity flows—particularly focusing on taste regimes surrounding ingested substances like chocolate and tobacco in Early Modern Mesoamerica and the Atlantic World.

Dr. Sampeck co-edited the seminal 2017 volume Substance and Seduction: Ingested Commodities in Early Modern Mesoamerica and currently shapes the field as Co-Editor of the journal Historical Archaeology.

Her scholarly excellence has been recognized through competitive fellowships:

• Harvard University Fellowship
• John Carter Brown Library Fellowship
• Colonial Williamsburg Fellowship
• Fulbright Fellowship

Major research support includes grants from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and Social Science Research Council, enabling extensive archival and fieldwork examining colonial material culture and economic systems.