Alejandra Garcia-Silva receives scholarship from the Society for American Archaeology

Alejandra Garcia-Silva, a double major in cultural and historic preservation and American history, was one of only six students nationwide to receive a scholarship from the Society for American Archaeology (SAA).

Garcia-Silva applied for the scholarship with the encouragement of Dr. Heather Rockwell, assistant professor in the Noreen Stonor Drexel Cultural and Historic Preservation Program. She has been Rockwell’s student employee for two years and she was hoping to attend Rockwell’s archeological field school in Maine during the summer of 2022.

SAA’s Historically Underrepresented Groups Scholarship gave Garcia-Silva that opportunity. Created in 2010 to increase recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities pursuing a degree in archaeology, the scholarship supports archeological training and participation in research programs.

“I honestly didn’t think I was going to get it,” Garcia-Silva said. “I just put in my two cents, and when I got that email it was a really great day. I ended up going to Chicago to the SAA’s annual meeting to accept the award, and I got to meet a bunch of archaeologists that are at the top of their fields right now. It was a great experience.”

During the month-long field school in the northern Maine woods, Garcia-Silva looked for Paleolithic sites and learned how to excavate. She gained a lot of experiential knowledge, and there was time for fun on the trip as well. “My favorite memory from this trip was playing Uno with my classmates and archeologists,” she said.

Alejandra Garcia-Silva at the archaeological field school in northern Maine.

Presenting at Salve Regina’s annual conference

Garcia-Silva recently presented at Salve Regina’s annual Cultural and Historic Preservation Conference. “My research is based on how to combine the old with the new,” she said. “I’m asking, ‘How can we use advances in technology to preserve and protect artifacts?'”

One way Garcia-Silva combines the old and new is through field work. She is currently digitizing maps for a cemetery located in Middletown, Rhode Island. “We’re putting in all the data and digitizing their historical maps, so it’ll be kind of a point and click situation,” she said. “You can just click on a grave on a map, and you can see who’s buried there.”

Garcia-Silva is president of the Cultural and Historic Preservation Club and a member of the Pell Honors Program. During her junior year, she participated in the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy’s Nuala Pell Leadership Program, which focuses on developing leaders for future generations.

“During the Nuala Pell Leadership Program, we met a lot of speakers that were leaders in their own areas,” She said. “We were able to go to Washington, D.C., and we met a bunch of senators and congressman and their aides.”

Following graduation, Garcia-Silva will pursue a master’s degree in museum studies. She hopes to settle in Washington, D.C., where she can continue to advance in her career. “I always liked putting on exhibitions,” she said. “Curations for museums or things like that was always what I wanted to do ever since I graduated high school.”

Article written by student writer Amanda Graves ’23