To be working if you dont have a book yet pick one up from the book seller partner in the back [applause] thank you for coming so talking to the space archaeologist. [laughter] so we talk backstage so first of all congratulate sarah on her book please. [applause] i feel this one and copy tucked in i have personally read it but i want to hear about how the book came around because of the american writers so it all started in 2016 after i won the prize and my tv agent and said you should really write a book and i said i know better than to write a book so where will i find the time and then kicking off a platform so to me for the general i can give talks and lectures so the idea of writing something in the range of 80000 words that people would actually want to keep reading and read the first two pages of the third chapter if you are not asleep and you are not a specialist so to think about the proposal and all the books that are out there for the general public first of all there really are not popular books about archaeology by women. And in academia right now so the idea and that is incredibly important but it is necessary that we provide these opportunities for other people. So the joke that three stones make wall so the idea that all the evidence together so that was important for me so that is what prompted me to write this remake its funny that you mention that because there is something people dont realize about physical science like one data point is potentially an interesting discovery three is definitely a line and four is like a trend in the universe. [laughter] so there is a certain element that comes with it as well. It might be helpful im not sure everybody is familiar about the archaeology maybe they could give a quick recap. Archaeology of course we spend a lot of our time looking for things we are assisted by a lot of tools on the ground that dealing with massive landscapes prior to Aerial Photography and then satellites, its hard to figure out in that field of archaeology with different kind of satellite sensors with the cat scan system with houses and that affects the overlying visitation that they cannot see with the human naked eye that we cannot see with those algorithms and then to pop out in the landscape to map out the survey so we know exactly where to go to have hundreds if not thousands very quickly that the archaeology is not about the finding that the finding out so to ask questions how and why the civilization rises or collapses and why now the river change course and so now they lost transportation this is what we can look for using satellite imagery we know where to go. So talk about what your data looks like so in astronomy they have that picture looking exactly what they look like that now those that professional astronomers use most of the time look like me in front of lap type one with a laptop. Are you doing anything cool today . Yes but it just looks like me in front of a laptop. Thats me too. So to me it is really exciting because spending time on Conference Calls anytime i do science it is exciting but but it doesnt look exciting but we go from the known to the unknown some people think i have a magical harry potter wand for those ghostly outlines the cities appear maybe that goes on in my head but thats not how the science happens. And then working in an area to have a database and then we look at the landscape and the geology is any elevation the sizes and shapes and orientation or the shapes of the pyramids or tombs or temples or settlements and so we look at all the pictures of everything that is they are and thats even before we order the satellite imagery but they have to know what you are looking at otherwise its really easy to get things wrong and i should say i hope im pretty honest in the book about the times i was wrong its good to be honest it is a long price of one process of failure in iteration one out of it i am thousand times if you are lucky so processing imagery and then you can see the outline of a shape and then you find something that works you can extrapolate to a larger part of damage im always collaborating with my friends and colleagues in egypt and we are constantly sharing information there is never a hero archaeologist emilys part of the team. Ever take your Indiana Jones leather jacket. Guilty as charged. I am very jealous you get to go to the place that the thing you are looking at is to check it out that is not an option. [laughter] so i would like to know the process of that. Is at based on the images that you have so at what point do you actually get to go there when you find out if you are wrong . [laughter] so what we do with this collaborative process and with my team called global export loan explores maybe we come up with a top ten list of interesting things we will send it to a specialist and we send them to a specialist and then to say 18 and ten look amazing i dont know about two and three but that is nothing but these three things are definitely worth checking out and honestly i would go with number eights that looks the best to us so we rely very heavily and that i really do rely but then if i know we are going to a particular place for six months than me will go but in egypt now at 300,000 year old site from the year and then we start the permit process about six months before the season begins so i work with the Egyptian Government that has very strict rules and regulations around the process we have to tell them exactly where we are going. I have traveled all over the world so i definitely dream but you will encounter no sympathy from alabama or chicago in the winter. [laughter] so the platform you set up so one of the questions is how many sites are out there how do we create a more equitable world and right now to access the data i dont know exactly how many but i decided to set up a platform that allows anyone to look at satellite imagery because there are only so many of us and many that dont have databases how many are there quirks 387 in a can tell you where they are with that common archaeological site they could answer that question which is ridiculous because that spectrum is pretty big so you create a platform and you can work much faster and with imagery and then not finding anything so we have had almost 90000 users from 120 countries and they found 20000 potential archaeological features and 700 determined to be major sites. So this is an example of people heard the term citizen science. That is the phrase for all of this that would otherwise be technical data that is very inaccessible to those who dont have Technical Training or archaeology or astronomy. One of the things and starting at galaxies do a decade or more where there were all these images galaxies and people were interested in exploring them but its a big task to take these images tag them and label them. So the Online Platform universe so with those images much in the same way but one of the things that has been interesting about that now the universe host tons of different stuff but i only have archaeology specifically but a project called those snapshots looking at animals or count the number of penguins in addition to every look for planets around other stars and those who are not astronomers to write a program like i would has done things to find new planets that were not discovered with professional astronomy and its amazing to see this exploration democratized in that way. Archaeology for some people is hard can be hard to get to other places. It is an incredible field if youre not there specifically it can be hard and since having a child we are naturally born explorers. So can we truly democratize archaeology we just want to create and with that data let me and the colleagues do with an Important Role to create a platform begin on before we Began Development with the people behind the universe spending a lot of time with ages and backgrounds and we have had users as young as four and five and as old as their nineties and older so the idea we have developed something for everyone to be connected to is important. Now developing the platform and then to get feedback from things they liked or did not like and then to make it a better experience for everyone. Has there been examples of people finding stuff like the experts have missed quick. So what platform focused on an area maybe there are massive geo quest and those that are carved into the landscape and it is debated as their purpose and with those original purposes. So the citizen scientist and then to share them to have the minister of culture and then to do drone mapping and as a result so as looking at the data could be given and with that citizen in archaeology and otherwise they may not have access to. And in academia it happens to some extent to level the Playing Field and it has been encouraging for me to see the emphasis on collaboration and then to say im fine and a fictional character so doc brown from back to the future is often who people picture an astronomer scientist but also Indiana Jones thinking about archaeology. And that is part of the narrative because thats how it is even any of these and you have a body of colleagues they were talking to. And then to have a harry potter wand i am a combination Hotel Manager and ceo and a diplomat of food planner and nurse. It is my job to make sure my team which is composed of 100 egyptians and foreigners can do their jobs really really well. I run a joint mission with the ministry of antiquities i have equal numbers of foreign team and egyptian participants and a codirector and then to fill the bucket with sand is every bit as important as a senior professor on a particular subject and they have not done as good of a job so i tell people i go around and i make sure that the Ceramics Team if they have a glue that they could do their jobs really well because at the end of the day i am responsible for their health and safety and wellbeing for the workforce and responsible to the Us Government for my projects its my job to keep things moving my husband who is also an archaeologist and also to make sure for years and years to have the hat that i wear now and i appreciate that but at the end of the day and to remember what that liked long what that was like before and thats a good reminder. So to write on write a couple lines of code. One of the things that is so interesting about this movement to equalize or democratize access is that often we are caught up in the terrible things internet has brought. And to be possible and the history of remotesensing canister is a film. So it started 100 years ago and that Remote Sensing of the archaeological site in 18 oh eight in stonehenge to put a camera on a covered balloon to take pictures on stonehenge and what he noticed was around the site to say wait a minute so over time the field developed and taking pictures to be served in the air force take pictures of those archaeological sites across the east to show them to their captains and then say wait a minute you can take pictures of things from airplanes . We could use this to spy on the bad guys are what they said were the bad guys. Archaeology started the field of aerial reconnaissance in the military and that flipped aroun around. s and now what we use is corona high resolutions by photography from the sixties taken between us and russia in the cold war and its important because it preserves the landscapes that are no longer around. And have a historical connection and then with those to do what we do so to talk about private industry going into space like blue origin or space x because the history of observations from space like is satellite reconnaissance so the very first satellites put into space to observe the earth and for those who are doing the math and was 59 when i was born and was actually in the air force during the cold war with that intelligence work and had transition into private industry and is the only person working in the Rockefeller Venture Fund with a security clearance to know the main contractor was the cia. Which is how that got started. And then to observe from space a very much started with military Intelligence Surveillance and even today , maybe back in 2012 or 2013 astronomy got a call where we were told that there were two new telescopes with the wrong focal length we could have from the National Reconnaissance office if we wanted. [laughter] so they are missions being planned right now what if you retrofit to look down on the earth you can use it to look out at space. And what i will lunch over the next several years but there is one over standing overlap with those observations of space and astronomy as well. Getting back to that connection and while we take this and with those screaming eagles off world war ii to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the jump by the paratroopers at the time was a foldout black and white so when he landed he could unfold that and use that to do the landscape. And then took that to graduate school with a new cuttingedge technology to map tree height and to the 19 fifties to think the miracle of the internet or what we can see in infrared because i must have been channeling him because theyre very similar to each other. So is infrared used now in the work that you do . If you are not familiar it is heat vision a little bit outside of our your eyes are sensitive to. And is it used in Remote Sensing quick. And then there was a big drought in the uk with many articles that came out showing all the outlines of medieval churches and those that just showed up in the landscape and as it grows on top of structure it cannot go as deep so maybe we cannot see that the grass is less healthy but with the Near Infrared bc chlorophyll being projected it is a little bit less healthy. So its a blog but an entire thing to see the outline of a building but that is what we will see what we process imagery on the light spectrum. And that wall in egypt and we can see the differences as the different grades of the soil. And then to use that satellite imagery everybody around the world is different. Run machines really hot so flyovers would be like whats that. If you get a notification from the Satellite Company that the satellite is going to take a picture in a particular place and time you can all line up ive heard of that being done before. Most of the time, people behave but sometimes they dont. [laughter] what do you think of some of the companies out there now and efforts to take additional surveillance of the planet and study it that way. Those that have any overlap with your work . There is always a tradeoff. Resolution versus the imagery so first of all its not just like i can get a satellite image of a place like egypt or iceland or india and the image is going to work. It works differently because of things like whether and the season versus dry season. Ive had them show up in january and august i can throw them in the kitchen sink at the site and cant say a thing all because of the weather and the way the ground acts in relationship to groundwater moisture. When im napping things looking for progression over time than the ten plural nature that you get becomes much more important because im looking for the site over weeks and months that they may not see the progression. For us we would use any and all data that we can. Its a goothe good thing is they for us is free. The people that run the companies are collaborative and wanted to get to be used as the idea we can use it anywhere in the world and there is tons of Data Available that there are tradeoffs. I joke with my students that it wont be too long from now they are going to have to shut the shades because satellites can see through windows and would at happened so we can begin taking out individual people. It hasnt impacted peoples lives directly so we are not working for the human subjects where there is a lot of ethical training that goes into it. Its the ability to look at images with computer algorithms and things you wouldnt have been able to had we been more important. A lot of us work on algorithms like the Machine Learning algorithms that are essentially advanced programs that can draw out information from the data whether it is images or other astronomical data and recognition like galaxies in an automated way. And the ability to survey all things from states or aircraft. And they are often than out into the arenas. Certainly in archaeology as well, we are through developing the platform. One of the comments that we got as he looked a at a lot of imags and we dont find anything so welcome to my world this is fine and i wish it were more exciting. But the idea we can use Machine Learning to get rid of the imagery so the cloud cover so then the crowd says these are actual things we can get better and better but what happens when the machine gets really good at doing this, have you just invented skynet and i keep expecting the terminator to show up and destroy my computer. And this is what happens when you let your imagination run away. I think about these things all the time and my colleagues talk about what is the tradeoff and is this the right way to be doing science. A big part of what i do is communicating and the fact i used some of those algorithms that are outofthebox stuff compared to skynet fact i understand what they are capable of means we see this stuff deployed on social media for example. I dont know if people saw that there is a huge, well a lawsuit on facebook against using facial recognition in the state of illinois they lost a case where they were arguing individuals would have to press charges for the use of facial recognition of their images which is how facebook and other sites like that tag you and your friends so when you hit yes, you are helping them get better at that and does anybody use the make my face look older thing . Neither did i. I am evil and subversive in ways that i know how to be. Take back. [laughter] anytime these things seem super fun like what do they look like 100 years from now, but all of those are essentially helping companies or developers who ever it happens to be that you are giving your image to train those algorithms to do whatever. You dont know, that is a problem you dont know. Its important to me to do a whole class on ethics, so what happens when say there is a contentious divorce case in highresolution satellite imagery shows a car with the same weekend of only the color. How can this be used in bad ways as well into the imagery is Getting Better and better. I dont have the answer because there is equal light and darkness. I know you wanted to talk about the history and the movement for the historical wrongs. I know your book talks about the history of looting and its interesting the work youve done to right those wrongs in the present day and also archaeology and presentation and looting historically speaking. We have to acknowledge it also has pretty serious backgrounds and histories and this new generation were beginning to unravel and talk about how we create more justice and equity and diversity in the field. Im very sensitive to these issues as a white woman living in the u. S. So, i try to make as much space as possible for my colleagues and collaborators. Something thats been very important to us as weve gone into india and of course there is a pretty serious colonial history we recognize we are a Company Based in the u. S. And to do archaeological work at the last thing we want to do is tell them what they should be doing. That is not okay on so many levels. So, instead, before we made the decision to go there i had a number of meetings with colleagues, and i said this is what we do, here is an, what interests you and what are your needs and priorities, what would you even be interested in and the possibility of a collaboration and they were excited and said we want capacity building. We need largescale countrywide nothing because they need t we o risk assessments and we want you to engage with the training so this is what we are doing collaborating and specifically providing that needs for them. These are much better ways of thinking and hopefully the dialogue will change. Its just going to take a lot of time. To do observation we are not just about scientific exploration. We are seeing the legacy of that right now and we have some of the controversy over the construction of the new telescope. Theres a pretty significant risk in the field who want to do business as usual and want to say its okay because weve created an Education Program for you and its not really in the spirit of what you are talking about virtues what does the Community Want and need and sometimes the answer is we want for mounting backend as astronomers we have to learn to be okay with that, because weve got him what he wanted for a very long time over other peoples wishes, but it is a pretty heated debate going on for us as well. We are seeing the debates and discussions definitely bleed into very mainstream popcultu popculture. How many people here saul black panther . There is that iconic scene where they are in the case of objects that were stolen from the condor and welcome to every museum in europe or the u. S. They are full of stolen objects and yes, some of them were acquired illegally but that doesnt mean ethically. There is a big difference because they were given under the colonial time period. I think we have to ask a lot of difficult and uncomfortable questions. We need to be listening a lot more to the Indigenous Peoples whose objects were taken. Now we are seeing the push to repatriate, this approach to give back. Thereve been a lot of discussion of the relation ship and of course theyve profited and made a lot of money off of the Opioid Epidemic and yet they funded so many museums thats now a couplbut now acouple of td their names we have a lot of deconstruction to do with the heritage and who owns the path and who has the right to display and take and share and show. And i think we are going to have a lot more talking to do before we begin to unravel this mess, and a lot more listening. It looks like we are at the qanda. If anybody would like please wait for the microphone. Are you planning to use any of the radar satellites coming online . The fantastic data set is important for the work i do in desert areas because the radar allows us to see through the dense layers of sand so we are looking at the courses and the idea that we can map the courses in the western europe from 10,000 years ago or more is important so that is a very valuable data set for the work i do. I would think the government is very interested in defense or other purposes and understanding and analyzing the data that youre collecting. Do you have a relationship with the on some things you share and something you dont feel appropriate to share her i worked with the state department saithe statedepartmed something called the Cultural PropertyAdvisory Committee and they are a 12 person advisory body and if they make recommendations to the state department for cultures that may be undergoing conflict to create policies. I work with them in 2014. You have to prove a series of points that there is damage and antiquities people are finding. So in addition to the data of a number of my colleagues presented with use and say that it was december of 2016 the memorandum was signed to restrict from being imported into the u. S. And similar restrictions on antiquities from iraq so in those cases of course im very happy to share that information with the government. I also work with a Homeland Security unless anyone says specifically for the antiquities they do very good work in terms of stopping them from being illegally imported into the u. S. So anything there is a case that involves the antiquities from the middle east always but to provide commentary in connection with the satellite imagery that i have if it i am very happy to that. It is the whole mess of the cities. Indigenous peoples they know where there are and another significant and many people have gone on to write about the cultures so that is completely lost over. That is the story all over the world and i just wish that that had done a better job of the story to light theyve done really good science and math region and we are seeing it begin to come to life which is the Early Detection and ranging. Flown on an airplane or helicopter but it does is send out millions of light. My colleagues have used this to find tens of thousands of features across Central America and the idea that we can for the first time get a comprehensive map at the entirety of the archaeology is mind blowing. Im glad you asked that question because the idea there are these lost places and guess in some cases there are cities we dont know about but i think it also shows we have a lot more to learn from the Indigenous Peoples because they still value these places and they are important to them. It is worth looking at there is this idea that existed for many years there was a city that had imagined. It had been located and people thought it was ethiopia and they would be very confused to learn. My daughter and i were wondering about opportunities especially in the future for archaeologists and astronomers working together. I disagree in the policies. Right now you need to be an astronomer. Where there may be difficulties on other worlds like there is a whole structure to how you recreate a civilization and a pretty good chance that if we do find on another planet they wont be there anymore so anyone listening i volunteer as tribute. I really would love to begin having dialogues with people because i think we have to start planning now for that in creating space and beginning to deconstruct the colonial and thinking through new ways of of prescribing the voyages and i will let you talk about that, but yes. We need a whole new vocabulary on how we are going to do this. There are a lot of exciting possibilities especially because in some ways they get too much credit for making it accessible. Its still not accessible if you have to sell your house to go to space. One of the opportunities that as there is there are more people now i think having dialogues from different sections of study and expertise. For example, people that are interested in taking the tools of archaeology and anthropology to understand not only what happens if we find signs of life on another world where civilization or something that builds things in the way humans do on another world, not just that but also understanding searching for life, and i think that has been very much the purview of people with a very, very narrow range of expertise in physics and occasionally chemistry and biology. Its interesting to see how much space there is now for conversations with people in the humanities as well as science beyond the physical sciences. So i think that that is something that will be very important as we go forward and especially not just making the conversation blog but also understanding the mistakes weve made in the past and how we can go forward better together. I just want to add one thing, some advice that really helped me. What helped me to be a better imagine her if the different possibilities of existing in the past with all the Science Fiction that ive read i just named all the women and now ive done that intentionally. I did that on purpose because i always wanted to write Science Fiction, but the idea of why are we exploring sites on earth and its not for the reason you think. Im excited for your daughters generation because i think that there are so many of us are coming down between the interdisciplinary and definitely start reading lots and lots of Science Fiction no matter what it will end up helping her. Thank you both so much. Two points that come up in the conversation im curious if you think the opportunity if you see this conversely books to do archaeology in their own backyard. That question gets asked often. You will see a satellite image but there is no mapping information. All you know is the lower somewhere in peru. Thats it. Maybe it takes you five years to find the exact place. The idea are we training looters i would hope not. One of my colleagues i think that it was almost 40 years ago they were going to beat us to get into th. And the reality is. So many have been other is china, egypt, southwest. We have a lot of work to do and we need to think carefully about the ethics. The only people that get to our archaeologists are specialists of the region and there are challenges, data can be lost, we do the best we can with the data storage and it gets blocked out. Wwhat we are doing is creating something to empower the communities it makes them the Culture Heritage and that is something we definitely want to do. Certainly. They are making extra money to do the same thing. I think we have to look much more carefully at that. That is all the time we have tonight. If you dont yet have a book you can purchase one in the back. I would like to thank our friends for tonight and thank those oboth of you for such a wl evening in session. [applause] good afternoon. 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