Sierra S. Roark
OSGF
Interdisciplinary Residency, Two-Week, Session I
Sierra Roark is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at UNC, where she studies human-plant entanglements. Roark is a historical archaeologist and archaeobotanist with a background in Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern archaeology. Her dissertation "Green Gold: Plant Use, Identity, and Power in the Colonial Chesapeake, 1600-1800" examines archaeobotanical and historical evidence of plant use among the diverse populations living in the Tidewater region of Virginia and Maryland in the 17th- and 18th-centuries. Using a framework of well-being to consider manifestations of identity and power, Roark's research explores the exchange of plants and knowledge, foodways, medicinal strategies, garden history, and the emergence of colonial botany.