The Material History Lab is a place for collaboration and exchange of ideas on material life and implications for understanding the deep-time human experience. Team members are encouraged to think creatively and uninhibited across disciplines when asking questions and seeking answers. Although the current emphasis of the lab is on Africa over the past 2500 years, no question, method, period, or geography is outside the scope of the lab. We seek to be a bridge connecting different disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. We highly value diversity and inter-generational collaboration involving faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students, other professionals, and community members. The lab members include researchers, students, educators, and knowledge communities in other institutions within and outside the United States. The lab’s instrumentation facilities are open to all research associates affiliated with the lab (subject to proper training, adherence to lab protocols, and the approval of the lab’s director).
Affiliated Institutions
The Field Museum of Natural History
The Material History Lab works closely with Assistant Curator Dr. Foreman Bandama and his team in the Negaunee Integrative Research Center on material based analyses and innovative curatorial and digitization methods.
University of Ibadan
The Material History Lab works closely with the faculty and students of the University of Ibadan, especially the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Department of History, for collaboration in research and training.
Media & Technology Innovation
The Material History Lab works with the Northwestern IT: Media and Technology Innovation unit to explore the possibilities of 3D digitization and XR storytelling for African and African Studies communities across the globe.
Northwestern University Partners
- Media and Technology Innovation
- NUANCE
- Melville Herskovits Library
- Chabrajah Center for Historical Studies
- Department of Anthropology
- Department of History
- Department of Black Studies
- Program in African Studies
Other Partnering Institutions
- Field Museum, Chicago
- University of Ibadan, Nigeria
- University of Colorado, USA
- University of California at Santa Cruz, USA
- University of Toronto, Canada
- Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
- National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria
- Nigerian National Park Service (Old Oyo National Park Service)
- The Palace and Tìmì-in-Council, Ẹdẹ (His Royal Majesty, the Timi of Ede)
- The Palace and Atáọ́ja-in-Council, Òṣogbo (His Royal Majesty, the Atáọ́ja of Òṣogbo)
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA
- Mississippi State University, USA
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA