Amanda Respess

Amanda Respess is an Assistant Professor of premodern world history at The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on the exchange of medicines, technology, and trade goods along the Maritime Silk Road, particularly through the analysis of shipwreck artifacts from the Indian Ocean World. She specializes in the intersections of material culture, Islamicate science, and Traditional Chinese Medicine, advocating for decolonized approaches to global scientific history.

Respess holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and History (2020) and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies (2020), both from the University of Michigan. Her current book project examines premodern medical exchanges between Iran and China using shipwreck artifacts, challenging Eurocentric narratives in museum representation.

• Research Interests: Maritime Silk Road, Persianate presence in the Indian Ocean, shipwreck material culture, medical anthropology, Islamicate science.
• Awards/Grants: NSF Fellowship, Boone Scholars Internship at The Field Museum, Rackham Program in Public Scholarship.

Her work bridges archaeology and critical museum studies, emphasizing the afterlives of trade artifacts and reinterpreting global scientific histories through a decolonial lens. She has published widely on Southeast Asian shipwrecks and maritime globalization in the medieval period.