Our Trustees
York Archaeology has a board of trustees that oversee our strategic operations. Learn more about them here.
Professor Ellen Roberts (Chair)
After studying history at the University of Cambridge, Ellen joined the Civil Service where she had a range of posts in the Department of Health and Social Security, including Ministerial Private Office, policy development work and membership of a Bill team for a major piece of mental health legislation. During this period she was also seconded to the Cabinet Office to work within a cross-departmental Unit, and was seconded to what is now Ashridge Executive Education.
Ellen then moved to the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York, initially on secondment from the Civil Service. She oversaw a set of innovative online postgraduate programmes, delivered to public service professionals in a wide range of countries. She holds a Higher Education Academy National Teaching Award, and is a Senior Fellow of the Academy. She chaired the university’s Distance Learning Forum between 2009 and 2017, and served on the University Teaching Committee. Before retiring Ellen led her department’s work for the Athena Swan award, a higher education-wide initiative to promote gender equality.
Her key interests and experience are in enabling individuals and organisations to work as effectively as possible, and in the role that organisational learning, professional development and the management of change play in this process. She has been a trustee at York Archaeology since 2018, and Chair since 2024.
Edmund Southworth (Deputy Chair)
Edmund Southworth graduated in Archaeology and Ancient History at Lancaster in 1977 and also has an M.Phil from Liverpool University. He is an Associate of the Museums Association, started his museum career at the Harris Museum in Preston before moving to Liverpool Museums where he had several roles over a 20-year period. He became Head of Humanities with responsibility for the curatorial team and the worldwide collections including British, European, African, American and Asian archaeology and ethnographic material. Major projects during this period included work on the first UK gallery devoted to the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the major refurbishment of the Liverpool Museum. During this time, he was editor for the Society of Museum Archaeologists and a Board member of the Archaeology Data Service in York.
Edmund undertook the Museum Leadership Programme at the University of East Anglia and became the Lancashire County Museums Officer in 2001 with responsibility for some 13 museums and historic sites including two textile mills and two castles. During this period, he secured funding for, and managed, several significant capital schemes including new Conservation Studios. He also spent a four-year term as a Committee Member of the Heritage Fund for the North West.
From 2009 till retirement in 2021 he was Director of Manx National Heritage (Eiraght Ashoonagh Vannin) which is the national heritage agency for the Isle of Man – a Crown Dependency. It maintains the National Library and Museum, two castles and a range of archaeological sites, holds 3000 acres of land and some 400 sheep!
Edmund has been Chair of the Destination Viking Association, a tourism-based organisation with 60 members across Europe. He remains an advisor to the Board and to the Follow the Vikings Route of European Heritage. He has recently joined the Museums Committee of the Heritage Railway Association.
Claire Fradley
Claire began her career as an archaeologist with Cambridgeshire County Council Archaeological Field Unit, working on excavations across the East of England and delivering educational outreach to schools and communities. She holds a BA in Ancient History and Archaeology from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne and an MA in Roman Provincial Archaeology from the University of Leicester.
Following her time as an archaeologist, Claire moved into the UK Civil Service, where she has spent over 20 years. Her career has taken her from geopolitical operational delivery and legal compliance through to senior roles leading digital transformation and cross-system responses to national crises. She is passionate about creating inclusive, high-performing teams and applying strategic thinking to complex operational challenges, with particular expertise in translating complex technical concepts for diverse audiences and building public trust.
Claire served as a Director Trustee for The Breastfeeding Network from 2021-2024, sitting on the Finance, Audit and Risk committee and guiding the national charity through significant organisational change.
Claire is based in Cheltenham and is excited to reconnect with the heritage sector, bringing together her archaeological roots with two decades of leadership experience to support York Archaeology’s mission and ambitious plans for the future.
Sian Hoggett
Sian Hoggett is Director of Marketing, Admissions and Engagement at St Albans Education Group, a charitable group of leading independent schools.
Sian was previously Head of Customer Relationship Management at The British Museum, and Head of The British Museum Friends for 12 years. As Head of The British Museum Friends, Sian and her team were responsible for looking after the Museum’s circa 70,000 Members. Sian is an expert at acquiring and utilising supporter data. At the British Museum, Sian ensured Members were recruited, retained and offered opportunities to further invest their money and time into the Museum, in addition to engaging wider groups of visitors with the Museum by buying tickets, subscribing to emails, donating etc.
Sian has also held roles with London Business School, University College London and King’s College London, working in alumni relations, volunteer management and fundraising roles. Sian has also participated in the Clore Leadership Programme, London Business School’s Emerging Leader Programme, and the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s diploma in Marketing Communications.
Sian studied History and Politics at York University, which is where her love of the city began. Prior to this she attended the United World College of the Atlantic and grew up in the Isle of Man, where she enjoyed visiting Manx National Heritage’s sites.
Ian Melia
Ian developed a passionate interest in the history of York during his first year at Archbishop Holgate’s Grammar School, then in Lord Mayor’s Walk, when on most days he explored the Minster and its surrounds during the school lunch break. He continued his education at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read economics.
After graduation he qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Thornton Baker & Co in the City of London. He left practice soon after qualifying and held managerial and Finance Director roles successively in the oil, financial services and real estate sectors. In parallel with his main employment he also held a commission for 16 years in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force serving in an operational support squadron and was called-up on active duty for six months with the RAF in the Middle East in support of Operation Telic.
He is a trustee and Chair of the Finance Committee of the Royal Air Force Club, a trustee of the RAF Benevolent Fund’s employee pension scheme and acting Treasurer of the Honourable Company of Air Pilots’ Benevolent Fund. More locally he is Treasurer of the York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Forum. Ian is a keen hill walker, a student of aviation history and is a qualified pilot usually flying a Piper PA-28.
Professor Martin Millet
Martin Millet has been the Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge since 2001 and is a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. He has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2006. He previously taught at Durham University (1981–98) and at the University of Southampton (1999–2001). His research focuses on the archaeology of socio-economic change in the Roman world and the application of survey methods in archaeology. He has directed a series of major field projects in Spain, Portugal, Italy and the UK. In Britain, his fieldwork since the 1980s has been focused on landscapes in Yorkshire, with major projects around Holme-upon-Spalding Moor, Shiptonthorpe, Hayton, Thwing and most recently Aldborough, where he has been working on studies of the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum. He has published widely and is active in communicating his subject to public audiences.
He has also taken a number of leadership roles in the voluntary sector and in the university. From 2014–18 he was Head of the School of Arts and Humanities at Cambridge (comprising 8 academic departments and more than 250 permanent academic staff). He has also been a Vice-President of the British Academy responsibility for the Overseas Schools and Institutes (2010–14), and was successively the Director (2001–07) and Treasurer (2007–11) of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He is a member of Antiquity Trust and was chairman of Antiquity Publications Ltd from 2006–14.
Professor Gary Mills
Gary is Professor of History Education at the University of Nottingham, President of the History Teacher Educators’ Network, and Co Convenor of the Centre for International Education Research. Before joining Nottingham, he worked at the Department of Education, at the University of Oxford and spent the early part of his career as a history teacher in schools.
A specialist in visual and immersive approaches to historical learning, Gary has led nationally and internationally recognised projects examining how young people interpret artefacts, landscapes, and photographic evidence. His recent work includes cocurating the award-winning Eye as Witness exhibition, which used virtual reality to deepen critical engagement with Holocaust photography. His current research explores how digital technologies help learners investigate historic environments through the perspectives of archaeologists and historians.
Gary has extensive experience collaborating with museums, archives, and heritage organisations, including the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, where he served for many years as Chair of the Academic Advisory Board. His work has been supported by major funders such as the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council), the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the European Union.
A committed advocate for accessible, enquiry-led heritage education, Gary is dedicated to creating innovative, research-informed learning experiences for diverse audiences. He brings substantial governance and strategic expertise from advisory roles across the cultural and education sectors. As a trustee, his priority is to advance York Archaeology’s educational vision and to help shape ambitious, inclusive approaches to public engagement, curriculum development, and visitor learning across JORVIK, DIG, and the Trust’s wider heritage portfolio.
Doctor Eva Mol
Eva Mol is a lecturer in Roman Archaeology at the department of Archaeology in York. She has a wide interest in archaeology; aside from everything Roman, this includes archaeological theory, Greco-Roman religion, digital archaeology, Greek and Roman art history, and museum- and heritage studies related to the ancient Mediterranean. Eva has obtained her BA in Classical and Near Eastern archaeology, RMA (Mres) in Mediterranean archaeology and PhD at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her MA dissertation on Crusader Castles in the Near East and computational analysis has been published as a monograph. Her PhD research investigated Egyptian material culture in Roman domestic contexts in Pompeii (forthcoming at Oxford University Press).
After her PhD, Eva worked with the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy, as a guest curator, curating the exhibition ‘Il Nilo a Pompei’ on the influence of Egypt in Pompeii and Italy. She has done research at The University of Chicago Classics (2016-2017) on mythology and materiality in the Mediterranean world. This project studies how landscape, objects, and mythology became increasingly connected during 6th and 1st centuries BC, shaping the Mediterranean, using case studies from Greece, Turkey, Italy and North Africa. Eva has also been a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World (2017-2019) and worked at the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, teaching Greek and Roman art and archaeology (2019-2022).
Eva has collaborated and worked on a number of Mediterranean archaeological fieldwork projects in Pompeii, Rome, Cyprus, Greece, and Tunisia.
Michael Schofield
After school in Leeds, Michael attended Newcastle University and stayed in the city to qualify as a Chartered Accountant. After initially working as a Finance Director in manufacturing, he changed tack to become a boarding school chief operating officer. The role suited him so much that he stayed in the education sector for 25 years, enjoying working with the staff and pupils in four wonderful schools – including St Peter’s School in York.
The COO’s remit is a broad one. In addition to being the principal finance officer for a £30m+ school operation; building construction, grounds and maintenance, IT, HR, H&S and maximisation of non-fee income are all areas of responsibility. Working at board level for over 30 years has developed Michael’s interest in, and appreciation of the importance of, strategic financial planning and risk management.
Recently retired, Michael lives in Fulford and enjoys walking, cycling, playing chess (badly), making the most of York’s rich cultural life and following the erratic progress of Leeds United.
Caroline Usher
Caroline has been a fundraising and advancement professional for over 30 years working at both heritage and educational charitable organizations.
Up to 2023 Caroline was part of the senior leadership team at the international affairs think tank, Chatham House with a wide-ranging role across income generation. Caroline spent many years at King’s College London as Development Director and later Director of External Relations. Her work at King’s included leading the team to deliver the College’s first successful comprehensive campaign. She also spent more than a decade at the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) and British Museums where she had responsibility for capital, revenue, and international income generation.
Caroline moved to York in 2023 and she now works as a hybrid consultant, coach, and mentor. Caroline’s advisory work includes income generation, campaign management, due diligence, organisational design, and strategy development.
Working as a Consulting Fellow at Halpin Partnership and a Senior Consultant at the Philanthropy Company she has advised a variety of clients including the Royal Academy, St Cross College Oxford, and Castle Howard. She is also a qualified executive coach mentor.
Caroline has a degree in ancient history and volunteers for the National Trust and Cats Protection.
Katerina Vavaliou
Katerina Vavaliou is an Architect (MEng), licensed to practise in the UK and Greece (ARB Part 3, TEE-TCG). She specialised in the Protection of Monuments: Restoration and Conservation of Historical Buildings and Sites at the National Technical University of Athens (MSc). She holds an MSt in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies from the University of Oxford and Wadham College, where she is currently completing her doctorate in Archaeology, funded by the Greek Archaeological Committee UK and Samourkas Foundation NY.
As an architect and restorer, Katerina has worked for the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, for the Excavation and Restoration project of Ancient Kalydon, conducted by the Danish Institute at Athens, and for the Aphrodisias Excavations, conducted by New York University in collaboration with the University of Oxford. She also has professional experience in enabling mutually beneficial partnerships between academia and the heritage sector, with a special interest in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Following three years at The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, she is currently working on an ASPECT Innovation Fellowship for the Oxford School of Archaeology.
Katerina is the Membership Secretary for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, UK and a committee member of the Research and Impact Group of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.
Richard Watson
Richard Watson has held numerous, professional positions within his trained field of law since 1987. This has seen his practise look after a diverse client base covering significant cases.
He served as Local Authority Councillor for 21 years, first, on Ryedale District Council and, post-local government reorganisation, on City of York Council. He has had significant involvement with planning, spending 17 years regularly sitting on Planning Committees including Chair of City of York main Planning Committee 2003 – 2011, Vice-Chairman of Policy Committee at Ryedale DC, Board member of Ryedale Housing Association and, later, committee member of Yorkshire Housing Association.
Richard was Sheriff of York 2010-11 and created Hon. Alderman in 2011.
He has been a Trustee of York Archaeological Trust since 2011 and has been a member of various institutions including York Civic Trust, the Liberal Democrats and WWF. In his spare time, he enjoys tinkering rather than driving old MG and Morris motorcars, and loves photography. Richard also has a keen interest in classical music, and has performed at services in York Minster and the Royal Albert Hall.