Mary Jane talks about Mayan Archaeology, running around the world and pursuing a career that wouldn't normally be considered portable.

Listen to her talk about the pros and cons of life as an independent scholar and what it's like to manage a major project from the other side of the world.



Mary Jane Acuña is a Guatemalan-American archaeologist specializing on Ancient Maya culture. Her passion for archaeology developed while growing up in Guatemala and visiting several sites that left her wanting to learn more about that ancient culture. She pursued university degrees in Archaeology and Anthropology, both in Guatemala and the U.S., ultimately earning her doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis. She has participated on multiple research projects and since 2014, has directed her own at an archaeological site called El Tintal in northern Guatemala. Broadly, the research focuses on understanding the sociocultural, political, and economic dynamics of the populations that inhabited El Tintal from approximately 800 BC to AD 1000.

Mary Jane likes to explore urban and natural places through running. She tries to run at least one race in each place where she has lived as an EFM, which so far has been Guatemala City, Seoul, Los Angeles, and now in Dhaka.