Andrea Chávez is a Master’s candidate in Historical Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology with a specialization in Archaeology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador in Quito and has a professional license. Her undergraduate thesis focused on anthracology at a Formative Period site in the northern highlands of Ecuador, Las Orquídeas (also known as Los Soles). She has archaeological experience spanning different periods and geographical contexts in Ecuador, from the Formative to the Late Integration periods. Andrea has been involved in the Cochasquí-Mojanda Archaeological Project, the Pambamarca Archaeological Project, and the Culebra-Colín Rivers Archaeological Project. From 2020 to 2022, she was a collaborator and subdirector of the EcuaDatos Project, the first radiocarbon and absolute dating database aiming to compile all published dates from Ecuador. She worked as Collections Assistant at the Casa del Alabado Museum in Quito (2019-2021), where she reviewed pre-Columbian artifacts from across Ecuador, and she worked for the Archaeological Reserve of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage of Ecuador in Quito (2021-2022).

Andrea’s research interests encompass the historical experiences of indigenous and African populations in the Americas, archaeology of violence and colonial processes, pre-Columbian monumental developments, mortuary traditions, and archaeological collections management. With expertise in both national (Ecuador) and international heritage and conservation laws, Andrea has served as a teaching assistant for Bioanthropology and a research assistant in the Latin American Historical Archaeology Lab at UMass Boston. In her lab role, she oversaw the transcription of historical archives by students and contributed to the project “Research on Memory Sites in the Ancestral Territory of the Chota Valley-La Concepción and Salinas: Heritage and Safeguard.” Her thesis project focuses on the Trapiche de Mascarilla, employing a multidisciplinary approach, including geospatial analysis, landscape archaeology, violence archaeology, and community collaboration to position the sugar cane mill in the historical context of the early 20th century during Ecuador’s industrialization phase.