معرفی
Heather D. Baker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto (St. George Campus). Her research focuses on 1st millennium BC Mesopotamia, particularly Babylonian urbanism, Neo-Assyrian royal households, and integration of textual/archaeological data. She holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford and led the SSHRC-funded MTAAC project (2017–2019) on cuneiform machine translation.
- Education: DPhil, University of Oxford
- Key Projects: Principal Investigator for Machine Translation and Automated Analysis of Cuneiform Languages (MTAAC) project
Her research interests include Mesopotamian socio-economic history, Babylonian urban morphology, and digital humanities applications. She combines archaeological fieldwork with cuneiform text analysis to study domestic spaces, urban development, and state administration. Recent work explores the built environment’s role in political and social structures.
Awards:
- SSHRC Grant for MTAAC Project (2019)
Teaching/Outreach: Taught courses on Assyrian/Babylonian history at Charles University (2019) and contributed to public lectures on Babylonian housing and urbanism via podcasts (e.g., Thin End of the Wedge). Currently on leave until December 2025.
Her publications bridge archaeology and textual analysis, emphasizing quantitative methods in studying domestic architecture, household organization, and urban socio-economic dynamics.
