Jeremy Sabloff

External Faculty Fellow and Past President




JEREMY A. SABLOFF (B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1964; Ph.D., Harvard University, 1969), an archaeologist, is an External Professor, Emeritus and Past President of the Santa Fe Institute and Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, of the University of Pennsylvania.  He has taught at Harvard University, the University of Utah, the University of New Mexico, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pennsylvania (where he was the Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum from 1994-2004).  He also was an Overseas Visiting Fellow at St. John's College, Cambridge, England. 

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (elected in 1994) and the American Philosophical Society (elected in 1996), and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected in 1999). He also is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London (elected in 1986) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (elected in 1983). He was the American Anthropological Association's Distinguished Lecturer in 2010.  He received the Society for American Archaeology's inaugural Award for Excellence in Latin American and Caribbean Archeology in 2011 and the Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.  He also received the Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal from the University of Pennsylvania Museum in 2014 and the Alfred Vincent Kidder Award for Eminence in the Field of American Archaeology from the American Anthropological Association in 2016.

He is the author/co-author and editor/co-editor of over two dozen books and monographs as well as the author/co-author of numerous scholarly articles and book chapters. His principal scholarly interests include: ancient Maya civilization, the rise of complex societies and cities, the history of archaeology, and the relevance of archaeology in the modern world.


Primary Institution: Santa Fe Institute

Role/Title: External Professor, Emeritus and Past President

Topics of Interest: Anthropology/Archaeology

Other Affiliations and Institutions: Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania

When and how you first got involved with SFI: Participated in a workshop in 2008; became President of SFI in 2009