Professor Rachel Popelka-Filcoff

Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff FRACI holds a BA from Washington University in St Louis (USA, 1999), a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Missouri (USA, 2006) as a National Science Foundation Research Fellow, and completed a National Research Council postdoc at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA, 2007-2008). From 2010-2016 she was an AINSE Senior Research Fellow. Rachel has received awards for her research including the South Australian Tall Poppy of the Year in 2012, which recognises the top early career researcher in the state. Rachel is the Past President of the Society for Archaeological Sciences. She has had her research profiled in several scientific and general media outlets such as Cosmos Magazine, Chemistry in Australia, and Chemistry World, and radio and television interviews.

She has contributed to research in a number of ways, primarily with the first comprehensive characterisation of Australian Aboriginal natural mineral pigments on cultural heritage materials, including ochre, by several advanced analytical methods. She also analyse uranium materials by a variety of methods for international nuclear forensics projects. Recent projects include the improvement of the understanding of international radioecological risk assessment tools to arid Australian environments surrounding uranium mining sites, through comprehensive radioanalytical and analytical approaches to flora and fauna.

She is the Past President of the Society for Archaeological Sciences, and am on the editorial board of Journal of Archaeological Science, Journal of Archaeological Science, Scientific Reports, among others.