Professional History

After obtaining my licentiaat degree in archaeology and art history in 1994 at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, I worked on and off as a semi-volunteer research assistant at the same institution. Among other things, I assisted in establishing a database of Mesopotamian signature cylinder seals and seal impressions (designs, inscriptions). I also researched and authored several scholarly publications which were published in Italy and Belgium. I worked temporarily as a group guide for a traveling international exhibition on women in ancient Egypt at the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire in Brussels. I also visited Yemen many times and wrote a popular book on this fascinating Middle Eastern country. Many of the photographs included were of my hand. It was published by Initia Publishers in both Dutch and French.

The career prospects in archaeology and college teaching were not very good at the time, so I ventured into other fields. I worked as an accounting clerk at the Brussels office of People Express Airlines until it was bought up by Continental. Also, I met my future American wife in Yemen were she was working as a Peace Corps volunteer. I reconsidered my options and decided to continue studying the ancient Near East at an American university. In 1988, I was accepted into the Ph.D. program of the University of California at Los Angeles. I finished my course work in record time and passed my doctoral exams with flying colors.

In 1991, I moved back with my wife to Belgium. I joined the team of the International Forum for Biophilosophy (IFB) at Louvain as an administrative secretary. IFB brought scholars from all over Europe and North America together in conferences and other projects which reflected on the ethical dimensions of biological and medical research. Later on, I worked as a translator for Data Translations in Zaventem and as a librarian for the Catholic University of Louvain. I was also asked to teach a course on the Middle East for the University of Maryland in Heidelberg, Germany. These employment opportunities did not keep me from eventually finishing my doctoral dissertation in 1994.

That same year we moved back to the US and settled in Kansas City. On short notice, I took over a course at St. Mary College in Johnson County. Even though the topic "Oriental Religions" was not my forte, I received very good feedback. I proceeded to teach as an adjunct professor at the Kansas City Art Institute as well as the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I was tapped for my expertise on ancient history, archaeology and the Middle East. Moreover, I served on graduate student committees and continued to publish and present papers in scholarly venues. I also developed and maintained several web sites.

Unfortunately, market forces greatly reduced the availability of full-time university teaching positions in the humanities. In the summer of 1997, I therefore decided to leave academia and started working as a research analyst for the Sprint International subsidiary of the Sprint Corporation. I then moved into a competitive intelligence analyst position at Sprint PCS, first focusing on domestic competitor metrics and forecasting, later on international wireless technology developments and international wireless operator metrics. In November of 2002, I was laid off from Sprint (together with about 17,000 other employees in a year's time).

In mid-2003, I channelled my concern for the archaeological heritage threatened in Iraq into The Iraq War & Archaeology project. Its web site became in short notice the point of reference for scholars, journalists, decision makers and the general public. A chronological, comprehensive archive of summarized and annotated articles and information was built till mid-2006. I also consulted for the Getty Conservation Institute's Iraq project. The next year, I joined the Alexandria Archive Institute (AAI) in San Francisco, well-known for its Open Context web-based research data publication platform. I have also been running AAI's two blogs.

I am now exploring other career opportunities in telecom and competitive intelligence in general, in the service/manufacturing industry and in the media world.