At the end of this month, the Society will bid farewell to Dr Stephanie Boonstra, our Collections Manager & Managing Editor of the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
Over the past seven years, Stephanie has become a familiar face to those researching in the Society’s London Office and to those attending our online events. Her expertise in ancient Egyptian manufacturing and the site of Amarna have featured in many of our events in recent years, especially since she joined the Amarna Project team in 2022. As well as the collections, Stephanie also worked with Dr Claudia Näser since 2018 to produce our annual Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. Through their hard work, the JEA has moved from strength to strength and remains the leading journal for Egyptian archaeology and history in the world. Together, they launched the Mentoring for Egyptian and Sudanese Authors scheme in 2020 which has seen several authors published over the latest issues.
While we’re very sad to see Stephanie leave the Society, she will not be far from us as she embarks on a post-doctoral position at Freie Universität Berlin as a part of the ‘Craft Interactions in a New Kingdom Industrial Landscape’ project, a major focus of which will be the re-excavation of a glass workshop at Amarna, first excavated by the EES in 1921 (see Boonstra and Hodgkinson’s article in EA 63) .
“It really is bittersweet to be leaving the EES at the end of this month. The Society has been a major part of my life since I moved to the UK from Canada in 2013, first as a volunteer and then as a staff member from 2018 onwards. I will definitely use the knowledge and skills gained while working at the EES in my new role – particularly my experience in working with the EES Amarna archive and from working at Amarna on my EES Affiliate Project which looked at the use and manufacture of faience inlays. Although I am very sad to be leaving the EES, I’m excited for this new chapter and look forward to coming back to the EES for research and attending the Society’s online events. I will always be passionate about the EES and will continue to support the Society’s future as both a member and, of course, as a friend.”
Over her time at the EES, Stephanie has trained many volunteers and interns in collections management, conservation, and cataloguing. We’re grateful to all of them, and to Stephanie, for paving the way forward for the next generation. Her seminal Egyptological Archives Skills School in 2020, funded by the British Council, continues to generate impact as the students who received training subsequently shared their work in a walking trail of the Egyptian Museum Cairo and will, soon, be published in Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries (left) – a publication supported by EES members in 2023. Stephanie will continue to work with Campbell Price as author and editor, and with Julia Thorne (EES Publications Manager) so that the volume will be available by the end of 2025.
EES Director, Dr Carl Graves, said:
“I first met Stephanie when she was completing her MA at UCL in 2014 and within a week she was recruited as one of my first volunteers at the EES. Since becoming the Society’s Collections Manager in 2017, she has gotten to know the collections better than anyone and pioneered new ways to engage with them and to share them around the world. She was instrumental in the restructuring of the Society in 2019 and the launch of our online programme during the global pandemic which helped us recruit even more supporters and offer intellectual stimulation to our members during an isolating period.
Stephanie has been much more than a Collections Manager or Managing Editor for the JEA, she has been a crucial partner in making the EES sustainable and beneficial over recent years. We will miss her dearly from the team but are utterly thrilled for her to be moving on to the next stage of her professional career and wish her all the best.”
EES Director Carl Graves and Stephanie Boonstra in the EES archives in 2022 with Egyptian Ambassador to the UK His Excellency Sherif Kamel.