By Ashley Lemke
Chair, ACUA

January is always a busy time for us because the ACUA has their first business and board meetings early in the month. It’s wonderful to reconnect with colleagues and set our membership and goals for the year ahead. I want to take this opportunity on Deep Thoughts to welcome our new and continuing members to board. ACUA is comprised of 12 elected Directors, with an election every year for 3 Director positions voted in by the membership of the Society for Historical Archaeology. I want to thank everyone who has run for these positions, this past year and the proceeding years as well – ACUA values your time and energy as well as your dedication to the protection of underwater cultural heritage. We have been especially blessed in the last few years with dozens of messages from students and professionals wanting to get more involved and we are astounded and very happy to see the promising growth in the underwater community!

Our current elected Directors are: Jean-Sebastian Guibert, Joe Hoyt, Roberto Junco, Jeneva Wright, Athena Trakadas, Kendra Kennedy, Bert Ho, Caitlin Zant, Amy Borgens, Sarah Holland, Jennifer McKinnon, and myself.

ACUA is also comprised of Emeritus members and we are thrilled that Marc-Andre Bernier was been added as an Emeritus! There is a wonderful write up about this in the Winter Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter, page 28. Other Emeritus members include Toni Carrell, Amanda Evans, Dave Ball, Robert Grenier, Paul Johnston, and Peggy Leshikar-Denton.

In order to collaborate with other organizations and individuals with shared interests, ACUA also has Associate Members, either representing institutions, organizations, or themselves. Our current Institutional Associate Members are the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, the Florida Public Archaeology Network, the International Committee on Underwater Cultural Heritage, the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program, the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society, and Museum of Underwater Archaeology, the Nautical Archaeological Society, the Maritime Archaeology Trust, Parcs Canada and Diving with a Purpose. Our Individual Associate members are Susan Langley, Amy Mitchell-Cook, Aleck Tan, Ole Varmer, Robert Yorke, Chelsea Colwell-Pasch, and Martin Klein.

Lastly, but certainly not least ACUA has Graduate Student Associate Members. 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of this amazing program! ACUA GSAs have gone on to do amazing work in the underwater archaeology sphere and we are so pleased to be able to meet new students each year! This is a competitive program where graduate students (either MA or PhD) apply in the Fall of each year to be considered. Current ACUA GSAs are Dominic Bush, Jack Pink, Lindsay Wentzel, and Stephanie Sterling.

You can view ACUA’s Who We Are page for more information on all of our members. And please reach out any time chair@acuaonline.org if you are interested in serving!

ACUA has a number of new awards so stay tuned to Deep Thoughts for more information!

Lastly, ACUA is also planning to host a series of virtual events this Spring so connect with us on social media and keep an eye out for announcements.

I’m also thrilled to share that the Archaeological Conservancy has invited me to give a virtual lecture in February, free and open to the public, more information here.

Once again, thank you to all of our members and we’re ready to dive into a new year!

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