Faculty Spotlight: Jayur Madhusudan Mehta, Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Jayur Madhusudan Mehta is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, part of Florida State University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Tell us a little about your background.

I was born in India and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, but New Orleans really is home to me. Anyone who has ever lived in New Orleans knows what I mean — you cannot leave that city behind. It’s a city of artists, musicians, and scholars, all bons vivants. I miss that the most, the joys of food, wine, music and conversation.

But that being said, I’ve been back to my homeland many times, and the vibrancy of life and culture in India is extraordinary. I think it’s great that I have all of these wonderful places to call home, and I’m excited to be making Tallahassee a part of that story.

When did you first become interested in archaeology, especially as it pertains to the native peoples of the southeastern United States?

I was lucky to grow up in North Carolina, where there are terrific universities and numerous summer opportunities for young people. I participated in a university-run summer archaeology field program at a historic Native American fort when I was 15, and that got me hooked at a young age.

I also got to travel all over the Appalachians with the Boy Scouts and go mountain biking, rock climbing and hiking, and for an inner-city boy, that was all I needed to know that my future job had to take me outside and into the world. And archaeology in the Southeast was just that — meeting new and interesting people, traveling to rural, rarely visited areas, and having the opportunity to study and work with people whose history and way of life is unique and fascinating, and rapidly changing.

What are your current research interests, and what makes you passionate about them?

I am most interested in the future of our historic and cultural heritage, from the archaeological sites of the First Americans 15,000 years ago to Civil War battlefields to Florida’s early tourist hotels along its pristine beaches, like the Hotel Don CeSar in St. Petersburg.

The seas are rising — that is a fact. As sea levels rise, coastlines are flooded. This is not the first time this has happened, as much of our early Paleoindian sites are underwater and have been so for about 8,000 years. My point is that America’s historical places are severely threatened by sea level rise, and it’s my goal to prioritize threat levels to historic and archaeological sites around the Gulf Coast, starting here in the Big Bend region and in the marshes surrounding New Orleans and moving outward from there. From there, I plan to write preservation or salvage recommendations to state, federal and municipal entities.

The critical point is this: We are our history. Artifacts, architecture, burial sites and stories make us Americans and make us who we are, and without these physical remains, we’ll lose actual physical pieces of ourselves and our humanity. Without the material culture and historical detritus of our collective past, we’ll lose ourselves, and when that is gone, it can’t be restored.

What do you want the public to know about your research? Why is your topic important?

It is incumbent upon us as scholars to share and disseminate our findings publicly, which I try to do with popular writing and filmmaking. “Keepers of the Mound,” a fantastic film made by Katie Matthews that features my work, can be found online. Another film made by my students from the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and funded by National Geographic will be out soon.

Who are your role models? Who has influenced you most in your life?

My role models are my parents — they left their homeland in their late 20s with two young children and moved to the USA, where they didn’t speak the language and had no money. This gamble was to make a better future for me and my sister. They worked hard when they got here, and I try to emulate their hard work.

What brought you to Florida State University? Why do you enjoy working here?

I wanted the opportunity to learn more about archaeology here in Florida, which truly has some of the most amazing archaeological sites. And the anthropology department has a long history of researching and publishing on some incredible archaeological sites, including local sites like Mission San Luis, Mission Patale, Windover, Page-Ladson, the Hernando de Soto sites, and Mound Field. Hopefully soon, I’ll add to our repertoire of local sites by contributing to research at Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park.

In addition, our department has archaeologists working in Central Mexico and Sardinia, Italy; we do have some exciting breadth. I’ve been incredibly impressed by the work my undergraduate and graduate students are doing, and I appreciate their dedication to learning and challenging themselves. Also, the Sponsored Research Administration and the Office of Proposal Development, both under FSU’s Vice President for Research, have been amazing at creating venues on campus for scholars and researchers to interact, and this has been a real boon for my work and personal growth.

What is your favorite part of your job?

Being an academic is fundamentally a creative endeavor — you have to constantly think on your feet and be ready to look outside the box for funding, for theoretical angles and for ways to communicate your ideas. One day I can be writing a book, another day filming a documentary, and another day teaching classes. No two days are the same, and I really enjoy that variety.

What is the most challenging part of your job?

The most challenging part of my job is meeting my students’ various needs. I train students who have a variety of skill sets and come from a diverse backgrounds, and the challenge is in identifying where they are strong and where they struggle, and then providing necessary training and skills to bolster their academic pursuits.

The other challenge is developing innovative research projects that federal and state agencies and private foundations are interested in supporting and that contribute to building a better world.

How do you like to spend your free time?

I have a family, so that consumes most of my time. But when I can, I play the sitar and go mountain biking and read books for fun.

If your students only learned one thing from you (of course, hopefully they learn much more than that), what would you hope it to be?

The scientific method is much more than a way to do science [or any discipline]; it is a way to critically evaluate evidence and corroborate findings with existing data. This is a life lesson, and the scientific method can take you through almost all of life’s challenges.

I want my students to walk away from my classes as scientists who view the world through the self-reinforcing processes of testing, evaluating and reassessing. Content can be found anywhere, but the most critical questions are about how that content was generated and why it was generated.