Dr Estelle Lazer

Biography

Dr Estelle Lazer is an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney. Her work on the human victims from Pompeii has been published in academic journals and books, most notably, in an academic volume, Resurrecting Pompeii.

Estelle is currently heading a project to examine the casts of the Pompeian victims for the first time, using digital X-ray and CT scanning technology. Estelle’s research has been included in three documentaries over the past few years: Pompeii: New Secrets Revealed with Mary Beard for the BBC (and the Smithsonian and Arte), Pompeii’s Final Hours: New Evidence (a three-part series for Channel Five in the UK) and Pompeii: Secrets of the Dead for National Geographic.

She has delivered invited lectures on her research at a number of Australian and international institutions, including The Australian National University, the National Museum of Singapore, Oxford University and the British Museum in the UK, Lund University, the Italian Cultural Institute, Stockholm and Stockholm University in Sweden, and Trondheim University in Norway.

Estelle has also worked on archaeological sites in the Middle East, Italy, Cyprus, the UK, Antarctica and Australia. Her other main field of research is historical archaeology in Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic. Estelle spent four summers working on Mawson’s Huts, and has spent another summer studying evidence of the sealing industry as well as Australia’s first post-war Antarctic base at Heard Island.

She has led tours to Italy and the Mediterranean for Academy Travel since the company’s inception in 2004, and also works extensively with our Academy Schools program for teachers and students. In addition to her obvious archaeological expertise, she particularly enjoys explaining the place of mythology in the landscape – especially in Sicily and southern Italy.