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On January 4th, 2020, Associate Professor and Department Chair Laetitia La Follette was elected to a three-year term as President of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) in January. Founded in 1879 and chartered by Congress in 1906, the AIA is North America's oldest and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology, with some 200,000 members in the United States, Canada, and overseas.

Read Professor La Follette's introductory message to the AIA community from Archaeology magazine's January/February 2020 issue:

"As a longtime Archaeology subscriber, I am delighted to introduce myself to you as the incoming president of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), the organization that publishes this magazine. The AIA is the oldest and largest archaeological organization in North America, made up of professional archaeologists and lay enthusiasts who belong to more than 100 affiliated local societies across the United States and Canada. One of these societies is likely located near you. There, you can meet archaeologists and hear them talk about their work through the AIA’s lecture program, which sponsors more than 200 events every year. One of my ambitions as president is to tap this deep well of expertise and make it accessible to an even broader audience via podcasts and other media.

I caught the archaeology “bug” in the sixth grade. Because my first name, Laetitia, is Latin for “joy,” my friends joke that it was clear from birth that I would go on to study classical antiquity. Archaeology is, as you know, a field that encompasses all sorts of specialties. It is also a field based on collaboration—no archaeologist can do it alone. Over the course of my own archaeological adventures, I’ve had some amazing mentors: an architect and archaeological draftsman in Athens, an underwater archaeologist in Israel, a Torlonia princess in Rome, and, most recently, several Danish colleagues in Copenhagen. Each in his or her own way helped me tremendously, and I am grateful to them all.

Such collaborations are key to the future of the field. I invite you to deepen your connection to archaeology this year in one of several possible ways: Find a society near you and attend a lecture there, explore some of the AIA’s public programs like Skype a Scientist, or introduce a young person to this magazine. You can learn more about these programs at archaeological.org. Together we can do great things. I look forward to working with you over the next three years as we support archaeology in the Americas and worldwide."