Augusta McMahon is Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, MES and the College. She returned to Chicago in the autumn of 2022 after teaching in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, UK, since 1995. She is currently the Director of the Nippur Excavation in south Iraq and has excavated widely in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and Yemen, including directing excavation projects at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in Syria and at Lagash in south Iraq. Her research focuses on late prehistoric and historic Mesopotamia during the 5th through 1st millennia BCE, particularly issues of early urbanism and urban boundaries, social stress and warfare, demographic diversity, and sensory archaeology.