Dr. Kathryn Sampeck is the recipient of the prestigious British Academy Global Professorship.
A professor of anthropology at Illinois State University, Sampeck is the first from Illinois State to receive the nearly $1 million award from the British Academy.
Sampeck will spend the next four years leading a research team at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. By utilizing cutting-edge approaches available at Reading, the team will study archeological materials from the extensive archives of the British Museum.
“Chocolate is at the heart of this project,” said Sampeck. “It has a complex history of profound social, economic, and political impacts on the societies who produce and consume it.”
Appears InThrough the professorship, Sampeck hopes to recenter the study of the global commodification of chocolate with an understanding of the Indigenous Mezoamerican perspective. “This will give a bigger view of the culinary world that created chocolate,” said Sampeck, who added the work could propel archaeology, Latin American studies, and digital humanities, and the scientific study of cacao in exciting new directions.
“The Global Professorship is evidence of the outstanding work of Dr. Sampeck,” said Illinois State’s Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Heather Dillaway. “She is rightfully recognized as the person to lead these transformative studies and push the field of archeology forward.”
Sampeck has devoted years of archaeological and historical research to understanding the cultural history of chocolate. As a board member of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute, she advocates for a more equitable and transparent chocolate-cacao value chain. Her archaeological endeavors are community-based, including co-directed projects with the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Sampeck recently held a Fulbright scholarship to the United Kingdom for research at the British Library and has held two previous Fulbright scholarships. She was the Central America fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Afro-Latin American Research Institute. She is a digital fellow at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, and a fellow at Colonial Williamsburg.
Her scholarly publications include co-editing Substance and Seduction: Ingested Commodities in Early Modern Mesoamerica. Sampeck has published numerous articles in leading peer-reviewed history, anthropology, archaeology, and geography and Latin American studies journals.
“Dr. Sampeck has established herself as a leading global figure in the interdisciplinary field of Afro-Latin American archaeology,” said Dr. Joan Brehm, chair of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Illinois State. “The honor of receiving the prestigious British Academy Global Professorship is further evidence of the significance of her innovative and groundbreaking scholarship.”
Sampeck’s work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Social Science Research Council. She serves as the archaeology seat on the American Anthropological Association Executive Board, coordinates the Society for American Archaeology Afro-Latin American Archaeology Interest Group, and is editor of the journal Historical Archaeology.
The British Academy Global Professorship provides mid-career to senior scholars—active in any discipline within the social sciences and the humanities and based in any country overseas—with the opportunity to work in the United Kingdom for four years. The Academy views the Global Professorships as an opportunity to apply to undertake high-risk, curiosity-driven research in the humanities and social sciences that enables the award-holders and their UK host institutions to achieve a step-change in their respective research programs.
