Iwona Kozieradzka Ogunmaki

Biography

I obtained a Masters degree in Archaeology (combined undergraduate and postgraduate course) from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland in 2002. My research interests at the time were focused on funerary archaeology and mummification practices in ancient Egypt, which I was fortunate to study further as an exchange student at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, University of Copenhagen. I continued to explore this line of research as a postgraduate researcher at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw, during a year-long posting in Cairo. On completing my scholarship in Egypt, I returned to my alma mater where I was given an opportunity to design and deliver tutorials on funerary archaeology, burial practices and post-mortem body treatment in ancient Egypt. It was during this time that I considered gaining qualifications in the study of human remains, which I successfully pursued at the University of Sheffield, UK, where I obtained a Masters degree in Human Osteology and Funerary Archaeology. Gaining this additional qualification allowed me to excavate and analyse human remains, both skeletonised and mummified, from burial sites in Egypt (primarily Saqqara) and Sudan as a member of various international research teams. 

It was during my work in Egypt that I developed an interest in investigating the relationship between social status and physical health in past populations. This became the subject of my doctoral research, which I conducted at the University of Manchester between 2010 and 2013. The main aim of the research was to identify patterns of health distribution in respect to different social classes within the Saqqara population, and to establish to what extent the observed patterns of social and biological status changed over the period of use of the cemetery. My doctoral studies were also an opportunity to exercise my passion for teaching and studying health in past populations by engaging students in a series of lectures on bioarchaeology and palaeopathology, which I delivered to postgraduate students enrolled on the ‘Biomedical and Forensic Studies in Egyptology’ MSc course. I additionally organised and delivered field training in methods of recovery, identification and inventory of human remains to students and graduate archaeologists during my research visits to Egypt. 

On completing my PhD, I was appointed a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at the University of Manchester, where I continue my research into living conditions and health in ancient Egypt and Nubia. I also assist in delivery of the ‘Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton’ course within the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester.

In November 2016, I was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellowship and received funding from the EU''s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to investigate the impact of environmental changes on the collapse of the Kingdom of Meroe (300 BC - AD 350) in Sudan. The project is based at the University of Warsaw, Poland.

Additional Training

• 2015   The Coimbra Method: An Entheseal Scoring Workshop, University of Sheffield

• 2013   Cross Sectional and Surface Histology Workshop: An Application of Anthropological Methods, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh

• 2013    Using Human Remains in Teaching Archaeology, The Higher Education Academy Discipline Workshop, University of Manchester

• 2009    Dental Anthropology Short Course, Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford

• 2008    8th Palaeopathology Short Course, Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford

Professional Membership

British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology

Paleopathology Association (USA)

• Sudan Archaeological Research Society

• Egypt Exploration Society

External positions

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow, University of Warsaw

1 Mar 2017 → 28 Feb 2019

Honorary Academic Curator of Human Remains, The Manchester Museum

Feb 2017 → Jan 2020