Professional Summary
Marialena is a third year PhD student in Bronze Age Archaeology. She holds a B.A. from the University of Ioannina in Greece. She received her M.A. titled "Beyond Akrotiri: Reconstructing Human Activity Patterns in the Landscape of Prehistoric Thera" in the University of Cincinnati in November 2025, under the supervision of Prof. Jack Davis. Her thesis challenged the notion that Thera was more "Minoanized" than other Cycladic islands through a systematic landscape analysis and comparison of material culture from Theran sites outside the proto-urban nucleus of Akrotiri. She has extended field experience, serving as a trench supervisor at excavations and partaking in research projects mostly at Akrotiri in Thera, at the Mycenean hilltop of Gla, the Neolithic-EBA site of Vathi in Astypalaia, at the Palace of Nestor Excavation project in Pylos, at the Small Cycladic Islands Project and at the Keros Project in Daskaleio. She worked for Heritage Malta, at various excavation and restoration projects throughout the country and with an internship at the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.
More recently she has been a senior member supervising field-walking and data management in the Kokkino Vouno Survey Project at Akrotiri, Thera.
She received the Emily Townsend Vermuele Fellowship for the Regular Member program at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for 2026-2027.
Her research focuses on the Bronze Age Aegean and the Cyclades, examining intra and inter- island connectivity through the production and distribution of material culture. Employing multi-scalar and landscape-based approaches, her work analyzes settlement organization and ceramic consumption practices in insular communities, with attention to the emergence of social complexity. Through integrating survey data as well as architectural and ceramic evidence, her work challenges notions of settlement hierarchies and explores local agency in the negotiation of island identities. Additionaly, she further considers exchange networks between the Cyclades and the west coast of Anatolia, and she hopes that her future research will contribute to pan-Aegean interpretative frameworks.
Presentations
Lecture
Marialena Chalari (05-23-2024. ) Guest Lecturer on the prehistoric site of Akrotiri, Thera in CLAS 200 – Greece at a Crossroads: History, Landscape, and Material Culture, Carleton College and College Year in Athens, (Faculty Director Prof. Alex Knodell) .Other Institution. Level:International