Kendall B. Hills, MA

Kendall Hills serves as an archaeologist and researcher for the Center for the Recovery and Identification of the Missing at UIC. After completing the Scientific Recovery Expert (SRE) training in 2019, she participated in a DPAA led joint-recovery mission in Vietnam. In her current position with CRIM, Hills conducts historical research regarding missing service members from WWII in the Philippines, was part of the planning team for a mission in Cambodia, and planned and served as Lead Archaeologist (LA) for missions in the Philippines. Hills received her MA in Anthropology and her training in archaeological techniques during her positions as field assistant, field supervisor, and field director on the Social Archaeology Research Program at Trent University – a project focused on ancient Maya sites in western Belize. During her PhD candidacy she has functioned as a research associate on an archaeological project that performed research in seven countries in South and Southeast Asia, and field supervisor and field director on archaeological projects in Cambodia. Additionally, she has held research assistant positions in archaeology based laboratories at various institutions in Canada and the USA where she collaborated on projects ranging from database creation to compositional analysis. Her dissertation research integrates geospatial and material analyses of monumentality to investigate provincial elite and imperial strategies of power in the provinces of the Khmer Empire (9^th-13^th c. CE) in northwest Cambodia. Her academic research has been funded through the Woman in Science Fellowship from the Field Museum in Chicago and multiple internal awards from UIC.