Our Mission
Our Mission
Established by a multidisciplinary team of academics, scientists, professionals, and consultants, the Stone Heritage Research Alliance, LLC's primary goal centers on bridging the gaps between science, policy, and education for the betterment of all three. We focus on providing cost-effective research services to communities that can increase local capacity building through and offer training programs and knowledge sharing to encourage self-sustaining heritage management.
Founding Members
Kaelin M. Groom
Director - Heritage Science
Dr. Kaelin Groom is an independent research consultant and faculty associate with Arizona State University. With a PhD in Environmental Dynamics, she has a wide range of specialties including geomorphology (specifically stone decay and landscape change), cartography, and cultural heritage resource management, while also exploring the nexus between disciplines. Besides regularly teaching Geographic Research Methods and Geography of the Middle East (alongside other courses), she has served as a professional consultant for domestic and international agencies such as the US National Park Service, Barbados National Trust (Caribbean), Wadi Rum Protected Area (Jordan), as well as USAID and UNESCO. For more visit www.kmgroom.com.
Casey D. Allen
Associate Director - CSSI Founder/Advisor
A champion of fieldwork and multiple award-winning teacher-scholar, Dr. Casey D. Allen has held faculty, staff, and administrative posts at several institutions around the world. A broadly-trained Geographer, his specialties include cultural/urban geomorphology (the “Science of Scenery”), rock/cultural stone decay, landscape (archaeology) studies, and geographic education, as well as expertise in rock art, humanistic geography, soils & biological soil crusts, and curriculum/program development & assessment. While he pursues research in these areas, it’s teaching that really feeds his soul, and he delights in helping people relate concepts to everyday life by incorporating some type of in situ, hands-on component that requires them to engage in the landscape. For more visit www.caseallen.com.
Niccole Villa Cerveny
Associate Director - RASI Founder/Advisor
Dr. Niccole Villa Cerveny is a Professor of Geosciences and Sustainability at Mesa Community College specializing in environmental sciences and conservation of cultural resources. She obtained her Ph.D. in Geomorphology from Arizona State University in 2005. Ranging from the study of climatic relationships through quartz grains to the conservation and preservation of Native American rock art, her research has been published in numerous scientific journals. Dr. Cerveny is passionate about bringing high-impact teaching techniques into the classroom and involving first and second year college students in undergraduate research. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant providing interdisciplinary field research opportunities for community college students with the National Park Service.
Ronald I. Dorn
Advisory Committee - Rock Decay Expert
Dr. Ronald I. Dorn has been a professor of geography at Arizona State University since 1988. He served previously on the faculty at Texas Tech University. He is co-coordinator of the Arizona Geographic Alliance, a K-12 outreach program to promote geographic education in Arizona. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and the Arizona/Nevada Academy of Science, a member of the Association of American Geographers and the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, and a Guggenheim Fellow. He has published over 200 professional articles and book chapters, and has won numerous awards for his research and teaching.
David S. Whitley
Advisory Committee - Heritage Management
Dr. David S. Whitley has over 39 years of experience specializing in the prehistoric archaeology and ethnography of far western North America, with particular interests in sacred sites, rock art, chronometrics, and cultural heritage management. He has also worked in southern Africa, the European Upper Paleolithic, and Guatemala. His professional publications include 17 books, various monographs, and approximately 100 articles and chapters. Dr. Whitley has written the nominations for almost 400 sites that are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For a decade he served on the Council of Directors of the ICOMOS International Rock Art Committee (CAR) and in 2001, he received the Thomas King Award from the Society for California Archaeology for Excellence in Cultural Resource Management.
Collaborating Scientists and Consultants
George Bevan
Geotechnical Specialist and Project Lead
Dr. George Bevan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, and holds cross-appointments in the Departments of Classics, Geological Science and Engineering, and Art History/Art Conservation at Queen's University, Ontario. His undergraduate teaching is focused primarily on the history of Geography in the pre-modern period and Digital Photogrammetry. He has undertaken archaeological fieldwork in Greece, Jordan, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, and currently collaborates with Balkan Heritage Field School to deliver high-quality training in archaeology, heritage documentation, and geomatics.
Lisa Mol
Collaborating Scientist and Project Lead
Dr Lisa Mol is a geomorphologist, specializing in rock deterioration processes. The interdisciplinary nature of her work has taken her across the world, working in environments as diverse as the Arctic and the high veld of southern Africa. Professionally, she is the project lead on the Heritage in the Cross-Fire project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and has also spearheaded many other heritage-based projects, such as assessing stone damage at the Glasgow School of Art. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Arabian Journal of Geosciences (Springer) and is a member of the Executive Committee and Trustee of the British Society for Geomorphology
Greg Pope
Collaborating Scientist and Project Lead
Dr. Gregory Pope, professor in Earth and Environmental Studies at Montclair State University, has a PhD and MA degrees (Geography) from Arizona State University, and BA (Geography + Geology double major) from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. His research interests integrate earth science with human dimensions, and include deterioration of stone in monuments and architecture, historic and prehistoric human impacts on the environment, and soil and rock decay processes in the environment. His research has been sponsored by the NSF and New Jersey DEP, and he works with colleagues in Italy, Portugal, China, Northern Ireland, and throughout the United States.