Dr. Richard D. Hansen is a specialist on the early Maya and is the Director of the Mirador Basin Project in northern Guatemala. He was an Assistant Research Scientist (Level IV) with the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA until Dec. 2003. He is the founder and president of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES), a non-profit scientific research institution, now based in Washington, D.C. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Archaeology from UCLA in January 1992. He previously held a double major B.S. degree in Spanish and Archaeology from Brigham Young University in 1978, and a M.S. degree in Anthropology in 1984. While a Ph.D. student at UCLA, he was selected by the U.S. Department of Education as a National Graduate Fellow and a Jacob Javits Fellow from all college and university students throughout the nation in the arts, humanities, and social sciences for five years. He was named the UCLA Distinguished Scholar in 1988, a Fulbright Scholar in 1990, the UCLA Outstanding Graduate Student in 1991, and the UCLA Chancellor's Marshall in 1992. He has published 69 papers and book chapters in scientific and popular publications and has presented more than 145 professional papers in scientific symposia throughout the world. He has conducted and/or directed archaeological research in Israel, the U.S. Great Basin, the U.S. Southwest, and Central America.
Yeahhhh, but can he weave a hammock or make sandals out of saw grass? ;^P