The Cyprus Institute

Simone Lemmers

Simone Lemmers is a postdoctoral research fellow on the project Face to Face: Meet an Ancient Cypriot, which started June 2019

She has expertise in the areas of biological anthropology, prehistoric archaeology, bone and dental histology, cremations, microscopy and imaging.

She graduated June 2018 from her PhD (Durham University, UK), with a project on stress, life history and dental development in primates. After defending her PhD she was a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the University of Kent, Skeletal Biology research Centre, followed by a visiting Postdoctoral fellowship at The Cyprus Institute funded by the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL).

She has international collaborations with researchers from Coimbra University (Portugal) and Leicester University (UK) focusing on cremated human remains and biogenic alteration in relation to burial type and depositional processes.

Since joining The Cyprus Institute, she became highly involved in the application of Synchrotron Radiation enabled research to a variety of archaeological sites, samples and questions. As a team member of PI Dr Kirsi Lorentz, she has worked on multiple projects at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble (ESRF) and SESAME, Jordan. These projects included the application of X-ray holographic nanotomography for studying degradation processes of human tissue and SR-microCT and SR-phase contrast microCT for studying the microstructure of both bone and dental remains in the context of pathology, stress and health in past populations.

Apart from research, she also has experience as a teacher in the fields of Osteoarcheology and Prehistory and has supervised bachelor and master students at Universities in the Netherlands and the UK. She is involved in science communication through regular outreach across the UK, mainland Europe and Cyprus. This included obtaining grants via the British Council designing workshops titled ‘Science in Schools’ for high school students.