Kenneth Sassaman is the Hyatt and Cici Brown Professor of Florida Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida. Ken is an archaeologist of the ancient American Southeast who specializes in regional interactions, community formation, mound building, and technological change. After working for 12 years in the Savannah River Valley of Georgia and South Carolina, Ken joined the faculty at UF in 1998 and has since conducted field work in the middle St. Johns River valley and the northern Gulf Coast of Florida, often with students in summer field schools. His latest research centers on the challenges of sea-level rise among coastal communities who mitigated the impacts of climate change through social networking and ritual practices that brought the order of celestial cycles to the unpredictability of earthly processes. Ken is director of the Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology, which offers research experience for students. Ken also teaches North American Archaeology (ANT 3153) every Fall semester, one of the required courses for the AIIS minor.