People

Satellite image of Western Desert in central Egypt
Photo by USGS on Unsplash

Senior Personnel

Piotr Adamczyk

Advanced Analytics Specialist
Piotr Adamczyk specializes in technology for cultural heritage, digital preservation, and works to ensure the long-term accessibility of global knowledge. He most recently served as the Head of Product, Archiving & Data Services at the Internet Archive. Previously, at JSTOR/Artstor, he directed the Artstor Digital Library and content data governance. At the Google Cultural Institute, he led global museum data sharing efforts. His background includes research in human-computer interaction, with publications on museum technology and new media preservation. He holds degrees in Computer Science, Math, and Library Science from UIUC and began his career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Danil Cuffe

Senior Researcher
Danil Cuffe is a Senior Researcher at the CURIA Lab, focusing on cultural heritage crimes. He concurrently holds positions as Digital Investigator at the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley and a trainer for the Open-Source Investigations courses offered at the Institute for International Criminal Investigations. He previously served as a Future Frontlines Research Fellow at New America and worked as a researcher for Media Matters for America. Danil holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Michelle Fabiani

Co-Director
Michelle Fabiani is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven. She is an interdisciplinary scholar that studies patterns of behavior in international and transnational crime with a focus on cultural heritage and cultural property crimes. In her largest project to date, Michelle combined criminological theory as a framework for examining how contextual factors influence the beginning of the illicit antiquities supply chain - archaeological looting. It proposes a methodology for understanding which sites are most likely to be looted and in which contexts using spatiotemporal data from Lower Egypt in 2015 to 2017. Her current work focuses on developing the tools, methods, and data to mitigate and prevent crime as a means of capacity building. She has published in Global Crime, Arts, and Collections: A Journal for Museum Professionals, among others. She co-organizes the Transatlantic Cultural Property Crime Symposium.

Fiona Greenland

Co-Director
Fiona Greenland is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Professor of Anthropology (by courtesy) at the University of Virginia. A certified OSINT investigator, she studies cultural policy, cultural property destruction, and the looting and smuggling of antiquities. Fiona directed the CURIA Lab Ukraine Conflict Observatory, an independent research project of the United States Department of State's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. Since 2024, she and her team have provided direct support to the Office of the Prosecutor General in Kyiv for war crimes investigations. Her book, Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy, was published by the University of Chicago Press in March 2021. It received the 2022 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book in Culture from the American Sociological Association. 

Katherine Harrell

Senior Researcher
Kate Harrell worked with the Conflict Observatory Ukraine in various capacities since 2022, first as a Senior Research Fellow at the Virginia Museum of Natural History and then as the CO Project Manager at the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the US Department of State. In her role as Director of Research for the CURIA Conflict Observatory, she directed and supported investigations into the Russian destruction of cultural property in Ukraine, Russian cultural warfare campaigns through social media, and religious persecution in occupied Ukraine. Kate holds a Ph.D. in archaeology and is pursuing a J.D. at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Chris Jasparro

Senior Researcher
Chris Jasparro is a geographer and archaeologist, with over 25 years of experience specializing in environmental and cultural security, archaeological looting and site protection, and transnational geographies. He is widely recognized for his expertise in cultural heritage exploitation, exploring how actors use archaeology and cultural heritage in strategic and informational contexts. Chris has published cutting-edge scholarship on how cultural property can be targeted or leveraged in modern conflict. He is retired from the US Naval War College where he held the Levy Chair in Economic Geography and National Security, is a trained OSINT investigator, former reserve officer, and was a senior advisor for the US Department of State's Conflict Observatory CURIA team (2023-25). He holds a Ph.D. in Geography.

Elizabeth Chrun

Scientific Information Design Specialist
Elizabeth Chrun (Ph.D. University of Washington) is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Prior to that, she was an FRQSC Postdoctoral Fellow in political science at McGill University. Her current research focuses on institutional failures and subsequent instances of institutional creation in the context of corruption, and scientific information design and dissemination. Her work has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture, and has appeared in Business & Politics and the Annual Review of Resources and the Environment, among others. As a scientific information design specialist, she seeks to exploit the principles of good design to better communicate and disseminate scientific research findings to the academic community and to broader audiences. She is also the lead project researcher for the ECHRdb, an online platform that enables broad access to European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence data.

current Research assistants 


Nicolas Biernacki is a third-year BA student at the University of Virginia, majoring in Government and minoring in Philosophy. His research interests include assessing the effectiveness of international governing bodies and analyzing the psychologies of post-colonial conflicts. Project: The Effectiveness of No-Strike Designations as Protection against War Crimes in Syria.


Nessy Cherazard is a BA student in Political Science at the University of New Haven. Her research interests include international law, humanitarian designations, business and marketing, and international governance. Project: Effectiveness of No-Strike Designations.

Mahso Gichki is a Research Assistant at the CURIA Lab and a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Virginia. She completed the MSc in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her research focuses on human rights, climate change, gender, and decolonial studies.  Project: Destruction, Restitution, and Justice in the ICC Al Mahdi Timbuktu case.

Trevor Hitchcock is a master’s student in Data Science at the University of New Haven with expertise in neural networks, python scripting, and relational databases. Project: Scalable Automated Multisensor Anomaly Detection Algorithm (SAMADA).

Shannan McCance is a fourth-year BA student in History at the University of Virgnia. She is writing her senior thesis on Ukrainian literature and language preservation. Projects: Environmental Crisis and Cultural Resilience; Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Loss during Russia's Full-Scale War.

Nikhil Chandra Nath is a PhD student in Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven. He has a strong research interest on archeological looting and how it is connected to money laundering and illicit financial activities. He has worked on informal fund transfer and terrorist financing projects. Project: Trade-Based Money Laundering in the Auction Market.

Taqi Rahman is a Master’s student in Cybersecurity and Risk Management at the University of New Haven with a focus on identifying discrepancies and risk analysis in financial systems. Project: Drivers of Archaeological Looting.

Kishan Saguturu is a Master’s student in Data Science at the University of New Haven. His area of focus is on combining machine learning, natural language processing and system design with Artificial Intelligence. Project: Drivers of Archaeological Looting.

Ashleigh Siciliano is an alumna of the Criminal Justice program at the University of New Haven. Her research interests focus on how criminal justice structures influence mass atrocities and genocide. Projects: Scalable Automated Multisensor Anomaly Detection Algorithm (SAMADA); Drivers of Archaeological Looting.

past research assistants


Anlan Du graduated from the School of Engineering at the University of Virginia, majoring in Computer Science and English. Her research interests include computational linguistics and sociopolitical applications of computer science. Project: Insurgent Artifacts.

Mijeong Jung is a PhD student at the University of Virginia where she is pursuing a master's degree in Landscape Architecture and a urban design certificate. Her research focuses on microclimate and sustainable city organisms while also furthering her knowledge of biodiversity. Her interest in landscape ecology stems from her goal of communication between urban and natural landscape. Project: Cultural Violence and Civilian Deaths in Syria.
Madeleine Peterson graduated in 2021 from the University of Virginia with a Distinguished Major in Sociology. In fall 2021 she entered the Tulane University School of Medicine, where she researched health care inequities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. Project: Insurgent Artifacts.
Thomas Powell is a master’s student in data science at the University of New Haven. He specializes in machine learning, deep learning and predictive analytics. Project: Scalable Automated Multisensor Anomaly Detection Algorithm (SAMADA).
Nanthieswar Sathian is a PhD student in Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven. His research interests focus on Environmental Crimes, particularly using geospatial methods.
Mirella Shaban is a PhD student in Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. She has a strong interest in serving her community and is on the board of RVA4Lebanon and Stay Safe, two Middle Eastern Non-Profit and Non-Governmental Organizations focused on economic and medical aid for Lebanon. Project: Cultural Violence and Civilian Deaths in Syria.
Rachel Swanson is a graduate of the criminal justice program at the University of New Haven. In 2024 she entered the Master’s program in Forensic Technology at the University of New Haven.
Grant Tabler graduated from the University of Virginia in May 2020 with a Distinguished Major in Sociology and a secondary degree in Foreign Affairs. He works for MITRE in Washington, DC. Project: Insurgent Artifacts.
Jafar Vohra graduated with a master’s in data science from the University of New Haven. He is currently working for the Toronto Blue Jays as a research analyst where he applies data science and machine learning to optimize pitcher performance. Project: Scalable Automated Multisensor Anomaly Detection Algorithm (SAMADA).
Gregory Wadsworth is a PhD Candidate in the Criminal Justice department at the University of New Haven. His research focuses on libricide and book banning in the United States. He is also an Assistant Professor at St. Joseph’s College in Maine.
Zabihullah Yousuf graduated from the School of Engineering at the University of Virginia in May 2020, with a major in Computer Science. In June 2020 he joined CGI Software Development as a Software Engineer. Project: Insurgent Artifacts.
Kalyna Yurchuk is a BS student in criminal justice with a concentration in crime data analytics and visualization at the University of New Haven. Her research interests focus on the intersection of crime analysis, national security, and psychology. Project: Scalable Automated Multisensor Anomaly Detection Algorithm (SAMADA).
We study cultural property dynamics and community impacts.
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Contact

Michelle Fabiani
Co-director
mfabiani [at] newhaven.edu

Fiona Greenland
Co-director
fg5t [at] virginia.edu