New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs' office of Archaeological Studies has a new business operations director and he says he's excited to be there.
The department announced in a news release issued July 11 that Thatcher Seltzer-Rogers has taken on the job as of June 26.
"I am excited to be the new Director of Business Operations at the Office of Archaeological Studies and to bring my knowledge, research, and my educational background to this position," Seltzer-Rogers said in the news release.
Seltzer-Rogers now oversees various client archaeological projects, encompassing tasks such as regulatory definition or permitting, scoping with clients, budget development and management, personnel selection and plan preparation, according to the news release. His other duties include reviewing and supervising project execution, which includes archaeological fieldwork, in addition to artifact analyses, report writing and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.
His job also includes managing state budgets, invoicing clients, conducting personnel evaluations, administering grants and supporting the department's director in recruiting client projects.
"The Office of Archaeological Studies is excited that Thatcher is joining the division," Michelle Ensey, co-interim director of the office of archaeological studies, said in the news press release.
Seltzer-Rogers specializes in the archaeology of the southern American Southwest/Mexican Northwest region, particularly focusing on Casas Grandes, Jornada Mogollon, Mimbres and southeast Arizona. His research centers around social complexity in intermediate societies and the construction of identity in cultural borderlands. His extensive publications include works in American Antiquity, Kiva, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Journal of Arizona Archaeology, and Pottery Southwest, alongside nearly one hundred technical contributions and book chapters. He specifically investigates the late pre-Hispanic Casas Grandes culture in northwestern Chihuahua and its interactions with groups across the International Four Corners region, where Arizona, New Mexico, Chihuahua, and Sonora converge.
Seltzer-Rogers is president at the Archaeological Society of New Mexico. In 2019, he received his master's degree from the University of New Mexico and his doctorate in Anthropology, with a specialization in Archaeology and a minor in Statistics, also from UNM.
