Scholar
Steven A. Wernke
Google Scholar ID: DO3muskAAAAJ
Professor of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
Citations & Impact
Citations
655
H-index
13
i10-index
20
Publications
20
Co-authors
6
list available
Contact
No contact links provided.
Publications
Resume (English only)
Academic Achievements
- Grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
- Grants from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
- Chancellor Faculty Fellow, Vanderbilt University (2016–2018)
- Joe B. Wyatt Distinguished University Professor (2019–2020)
- Faculty Fellow, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities (2020–2021)
- Supported by Vanderbilt Data Science Institute, Center for Digital Humanities, Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies, and National Museum of Ethnology (Japan)
Research Experience
- Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
- Director, Vanderbilt Institute for Spatial Research
- Director, Spatial Analysis Research Laboratory
- Conducts long-term, community-oriented archaeological fieldwork in the Colca Valley, southern Peruvian highlands
- Co-developed two collaborative online platforms with Akira Saito (National Museum of Ethnology, Japan) and Parker VanValkenburgh (Brown University): LOGAR (Linked Open Gazetteer for the Andean Region) and GeoPACHA (Geospatial Platform for Andean Culture, History, and Archaeology)
- GeoPACHA integrates historical aerial and high-resolution satellite imagery for large-scale virtual archaeological survey
- Developed and deployed Vision Transformer (ViT) AI models for continental-scale satellite imagery analysis; currently refining them via GeoPACHA-AI with South American collaborators
Background
- Archaeologist and historical anthropologist specializing in Andean South America
- Focuses on the lived experiences of indigenous communities during the Spanish invasion of the Americas
- Explores how Andean peoples navigated successive imperial occupations by the Inkas and the Spanish
- Integrates archaeological and documentary data within unified spatial frameworks
- Current research centers on the Reducción General de Indios (1570s), one of the largest forced resettlement programs in world history, displacing approximately 1.4 million Andeans
