Brunella Muttillo is a prehistoric archaeologist whose research advances understanding of early human cultural and technological evolution through multidisciplinary studies of Paleolithic material culture. She has developed a solid research portfolio in Italy, investigating lithic technology and human occupations during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.

In Colombia, she directs the Italian Archaeological Mission, leading pioneering research on the earliest human settlement of South America. Her work in the region has earned her several awards and recognitions for scientific excellence. She has a strong record of publications in leading peer-reviewed journals and collaborates with international and interdisciplinary research teams. Committed to fostering innovation and critical thinking, she is also actively engaged in the public communication and preservation of prehistoric heritage.

Dr. Muttillo is collaborating with Kurt Rademaker in a systematic re-evaluation of lithic artifacts and faunal remains from some of the oldest archaeological sites in Colombia. These include early sites in the Sabana de Bogota and Magdalena valley. The objectives of this research are to construct reliable radiocarbon chronologies, to better understand behavioral patterns of some of the first people to live in Colombia, and to evaluate possible associations between humans and extinct Pleistocene megafauna.

Alyssa V. Pietraszek is a Research Specialist II in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on the connection between humans and coastal environments, integrating marine geology and archaeology to reconstruct past landscapes and environmental changes. Under the supervision of Dr. Jessi Halligan, her current work focuses on submerged palaeolandscapes in the Gulf region, refining methodologies for detecting and analyzing these landscapes to improve pre-Contact archaeological surveys. With over a decade of archaeological experience, she has served as a geoarchaeologist and area supervisor on multiple projects in Israel. Her research has been published in leading journals, including Nature Human Behavior and Quaternary International.

Christina Ryder is an archaeological scientist whose research applies near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) to assess biomolecular preservation in fossil bone. Her work develops and refines non-destructive screening methods to optimize sampling for radiocarbon, stable isotope, and paleoproteomic analyses, with applications to Late Pleistocene megafaunal and archaeological assemblages across North America, Eurasia, and Africa. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder, where her dissertation, Saving Old Bones, established NIR spectroscopy as a predictive tool for evaluating collagen preservation in archaeological bone. At the Center for the Study of the First Americans, she leads NIR prescreening and radiocarbon sampling within a large-scale radiocarbon dating project investigating the timing of Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions.