The Team

The Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC) is administered by the TRAC Standing Committee, which is composed of five elected members as well as representatives from the previous and current local organising committees. The TRAC Standing Committee works to ensure that TRAC, its conferences, and publications continue to operate, and that TRAC and its aims are promoted within the wider archaeological community. Each member serves a three-year term with a maximum of two terms served.

Aims of the Standing Committee

Standing committee meetings and oversee the work of Local Organising Committees as well as (other tasks name them). Diverse group with a variety of background, stages of early career and nationalities and genders. The aims of the Standing Committee are:

  1. to promote and further TRAC’s general aims;
  2. to ensure the continuity of TRAC, its annual conferences, and publications;
  3. to promote TRAC within the wider archaeological community and to ensure the participation within TRAC of all interested parties, not just those based in universities;
  4. to ensure that TRAC remains a forum for senior academics and professionals, young scholars, students, and the wider archaeological community;
  5. to represent the interests of TRAC with regards to RAC (the Roman Archaeology Conference), or any other conference partner.

TRAC Standing Committee Members

Current Standing Committee Members:

Dragos Mitrofan (He/Him) Chair of TRAC, University of Exeter

Dragos has worked as a commercial archaeologist on numerous multi-period sites in the UK and Romania, including several large infrastructure projects.  He is currently undertaking his PhD at the University of Exeter with a thesis focused on mapping, dating, and interpreting ‘plaster burials’ throughout the Empire. Other research interests include probability theory and application modelling for relative dating as well as field methods and excavation practices. 

Dr Kelsey Shawn Madden (She/Her), Treasurer, Institute of Classical Studies

Kelsey is a Roman archaeologist who manages archaeological excavations in Italy and the UK and is the current acting fieldwork supervisor for the British School at Rome on the Falerii Novi Project. She is an Early Career Research Associate at the Institute of Classical Studies (University of London). She specialises in Roman visual culture, focusing on depictions of captive ‘barbarian’ women and children from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD (PhD in Archaeology, University of Sheffield). Her interests lie in the trafficking of captives by Rome, wartime sexual violence in Roman contexts, and their portrayals. Kelsey’s interdisciplinary approach integrates archaeology, art history, sociology, and feminist methodologies to examine Rome’s function and impact as an imperial power in the context of gender, sexuality, and the predatory notion of Roman conquest.

David Spiller (He/Him), Ordinary Member, University of Reading

Dave is a PhD student and associate lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading, researching warlordism, separation of church and state, and contemporary ethnology in late and post-Roman Britain. Dave is additionally a lecturer in archaeology at Truro and Penwith College. His research interests also include the place of archaeology in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century British politics. He has dug on a number of sites across the UK, and previously studied at the University of Oxford and the University of York.

Paul Vădineanu (He/Him), Ordinary Member, University of Cologne

Paul is a 3rd year PhD student in computational archaeology at the University of Cologne where he studies cities and urban/social transformations from the early through to the late Roman Empire, with a particular interest in the 3rd-5th centuries. During his previous studies (Babeș-Bolyai University, RO, Edinburgh University, UK) he focused on subjects such as settlement patterns and trade relations across and beyond frontiers, identity formation and ethnicity, and the instrumentalisation of archaeology in creating national histories and grand narratives. He also has a background as a field archaeologist having participated on a number of large excavation projects in Romania and worked as a full-time commercial archaeologist in Germany.

Nicholas Aherne, Ordinary Member, University of Groningen

Nicholas specialises in material and visual culture of the Graeco-Roman world. His PhD (2022–2026, University of Groningen) investigates the role of sarcophagi in the funerary customs of Roman Phoenicia. His research also concerns domestic space at Pompeii, religious graffiti at Dura-Europos, Mithraism, and the Roman military. Nicholas takes a theoretical approach to the material, foregrounding ancient lived experience, materiality studies, and ritual theory. Hewas awarded a BA in Classical Civilisation from the University of Warwick, an MSt in Classical Archaeology from Lincoln College, Oxford.

Keshlan Padayachee (He/Him), Ordinary Member, Cardiff University and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales

Keshlan is a doctoral researcher at Cardiff University and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, funded through the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme. His thesis, Addressing the Roman Colonial Story in South-East Wales, reassesses the region’s archaeological record through theoretically informed and community-engaged research. Drawing on under-studied museum collections, excavation archives, and community-reported finds, it traces how imperial encounter and local response were materialised across south-east Wales, and how coloniality has shaped both the archaeological record and its subsequent interpretation.

Keshlan has undertaken field and post-excavation research across Roman and transitional provincial contexts, contributing to curatorial, interpretive, and public engagement work in academic and heritage settings. He holds an MSt in Classical Archaeology from the University of Oxford, where he was a Clarendon Scholar, and a first-class honours degree in Archaeology and Ancient History from Cardiff University; he is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Institute of Classical Studies.