Professor Lauren Sullivan, an archaeologist who studied Mayan ceramics, taught at UMass Boston and Tufts University and led field schools in Belize for more than 40 years, died March 12 of surgical complications. She was 60.
Sullivan, born in 1965 to parents Michael and Karen Sullivan, earned a bachelor’s degree from Trinity University in San Antonio before studying Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a master’s degree and doctorate.
Her research focused largely on using pottery and ceramics to understand the Mayan people, a civilization that existed throughout Mesoamerica from approximately 2000 BCE until the late 17th century. “The central theme behind my research is to gain a better understanding of the processes involved in the establishment and collapse of social hierarchies and how these are expressed in the archaeological record,” Sullivan wrote in her bio for Tufts University.
As a senior lecturer in the anthropology department at UMass Boston, she taught classes including “Food and Society” and “The Rise and Fall of the Maya,” according to the university’s website. In addition to teaching, she helped shape UMass Boston’s curriculum as a member of the general education committee and the university’s intermediate seminar coordinator.
She was also the faculty sponsor for UMass Boston’s chapter of the Lambda Alpha National Anthropology Honor Society, which was founded in 2006.
At Tufts University, where Sullivan was also a lecturer in the anthropology department, she taught courses including “Introduction to Archaeology” and “Mesoamerican Archaeology,” as well as co-teaching a general education course called “Big Bang to Humankind” which explored the history of the universe.
Sullivan’s academic work frequently took her far from campus. Each summer, she led an archaeology field school in northwestern Belize for UMass Boston. “Our camp is located in the middle of a tropical rainforest within a conservation area rich with flora, fauna, and archaeological remains. It is quite common to be woken up in the morning by the sounds of howler monkeys, parrots, or toucans,” she wrote in a 2011 announcement published in The Mass Media.
Her field work was not glamorous, with “limited power with generators, no internet, no hot water, no latrines,” she said in a 2023 article in the Breakthrough Journal at Tufts.
At a memorial March 27, colleagues described her warmth, kindness and intelligence — and “her southern-ness that she brought every day,” said Stephen Silliman, an anthropology department colleague. Silliman began his remarks with a call and response of “hey,” answered without hesitation, “y’all,” from dozens around the room. “Anyone who’s ever taken a class with Lauren knows that’s how class begins. That’s how a meeting begins. Hey, y’all,” he said.
“She was a beloved instructor, a beyond reliable colleague, and a skilled ceramicist and Maya archaeologist who kept up active research when actually her teaching schedule could have weighed heavily against that,” Silliman said.
“If there was an Olympic event in organization, Lauren would have medaled that,” said Anthropology department Chair Patrick Clarkin. She was always the first to turn in her course syllabi and annual reports, often referring to her organizational skills in a self-deprecating way: “’Oh, I finished that a long time ago because I’m such a freak,’” Clarkin said, quoting Sullivan. “This self-deprecation was another expression of Lauren’s humility and kindness, sparing the feelings of us non-Olympians who were chronically late and never fully mastered the art of time management.”
“Just yesterday, her office mate and I, Alan Waters — we both agreed that even though it took the efforts of many people to plan today’s gathering, for which I am grateful, Lauren would have had this event planned a week ago,” Clarkin said.
Sullivan was the ceramicist for the Programme for Belize Archaeology Project, using pottery to date sites and determine how people lived. The project began in 1992 “to document settlement and landscape modifications across the Programme for Belize property known originally as the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area,” according to a 2004 report on the project that lists Sullivan as a co-author.
She was also associate director of the St. George’s Caye Archaeological project, focusing on the Caribbean island that served as the first capital of Belize and a strategic merchant port under British occupation, according to a 2013 paper that Sullivan co-authored.
Sullivan, raised in New Orleans, “was a much better Southerner than I was… I don’t care about football, but Lauren did, and especially when it came to talking about the Saints,” Silliman said. Her love for the Saints was well known, including among her students, one of whom wrote a note on an exam asking for extra credit due to a shared love for Saints quarterback Drew Brees.
Craig Cipolla, UMass Boston alumnus and a colleague from the anthropology department at Tufts University, said he is attempting to take on the “impossible feat” of stepping into her class there. “I’m not doing a good job, but I’m becoming a better teacher because of it, so I’m always grateful to Lauren for that,” he said.
“When I was a student at UMass Boston, I did not have the opportunity to take any classes with Lauren,” Cipolla said. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything from her. Primarily, I learned how to be a better human being — which of course, we could use a lot more of that these days — and I learned that you take time with every person you interact with, and make them feel seen and care for them.“
