Early Encounters on a Western Frontier: The Search for Svyatoy Nikolai (1807-1808)

Madeline Roth

Principal Investigator; Maritime Archaeologist, NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries

Madeline Roth is a maritime archaeologist with the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries’ Maritime Heritage Program. She received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and holds a master’s degree in Maritime Studies from East Carolina University. Madeline is also a certified scuba instructor with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors. Over the past decade, Madeline has been involved in archaeological and marine survey projects throughout the United States, Caribbean, Africa, and Pacific. At NOAA, she is primarily responsible for overseeing heritage resource management and field operations. Her research interests include conflict archaeology, intangible heritage preservation, colonial encounters, and heritage policy.

Katie Wrubel

Co-Principal Investigator; Resource Protection Specialist, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary

Katie Wrubel has served as the resource protection specialist for Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS) since 2020. Katie completed her master’s degree in environmental science at Washington State University Vancouver in 2013. Her thesis research looked at fish-habitat associations with a focus on biogenic structures (e.g., deep-sea corals and sponges) within OCNMS using archived remotely operated vehicle video. Katie was a NOAA Dr. Nancy Foster Scholar during her graduate studies. Katie received a bachelor’s degree in environmental science, technology, and policy with a minor in mathematics from California State University Monterey Bay in 2010. As an undergraduate, she participated in a research partnership between the Institute for Applied Marine Ecology and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in their site characterization efforts and marine protected area monitoring activities. After graduate school, she was a Washington Sea Grant Marc Hershman Marine Policy Fellow at the Nature Conservancy where she focused on marine spatial planning with tribal and nontribal partners. During her fellowship, Katie built strong relationships with tribal members and staff from the Coastal Treaty Tribes. From 2014-2020, Katie worked as the natural resource policy analyst for the Makah Tribe in Neah Bay, Washington, focusing on the protection of tribal treaty rights, development and implementation of the Makah Ocean Policy, and the development of the Tribe’s climate change plans. She also served as the Tribal Caucus Coordinator for the West Coast Ocean Alliance from 2018-2020.

Jennifer McKinnon

Co-Principal Investigator; Professor, Department of History, East Carolina University

Jennifer (Jen) McKinnon, Ph.D., is a research associate with Ships of Discovery and a professor with East Carolina University’s Department of History, Program in Maritime Studies. She has worked in the United States, Australia, the Pacific, and Europe on sites ranging from the colonial period to World War II (WWII). Jen has researched and written extensively on heritage and conflict sites in the Pacific, spending over a decade working on sites in Saipan. She has published several journal articles and book chapters and co-edited (with Toni L. Carrell) a book entitled Underwater Archaeology of a Pacific Battlefield: The WWII Battle of Saipan. In 2011, she was awarded the Governor’s Humanities Award for Preservation of CNMI History for the development of the WWII Maritime Heritage Trail — Battle of Saipan. She has served as an expert for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Pacific, writing and contributing to two UNESCO publications on maritime heritage and WWII heritage in the Pacific.

Ryan Bradley

Dive Safety Officer, East Carolina University

Ryan Bradley is the dive safety officer for East Carolina University (ECU). He is an American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) scientific dive instructor with a master’s degree in maritime studies from ECU. Prior to working for ECU, he served as a maritime archaeologist, an education and outreach specialist, and an underwater operations specialist. He is responsible for training ECU’s maritime studies students in AAUS scientific diving, Diver Alert Network’s first aid, and CPR, as well as ensuring diving safety protocols are followed during field projects.

Dayan Weller

Graduate Student, East Carolina University

Dayan Weller is a third year graduate student at East Carolina University who grew up in the Monterey Bay, California, area. He attended Cabrillo College, where he began to pursue archaeology as a career and eventually enrolled in the 2014 field school on Santa Rosa Island and in Nipomo, California, and began working in cultural resource management shortly after. He transferred to University of California Santa Cruz, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology in 2018, and continued to work on archaeological projects until moving to Greenville, North Carolina, to begin the Maritime Studies graduate program at East Carolina University. His primary research interest is commercial whaling and the archaeology of maritime industry.