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Rachel Popelka-Filcoff
Rachel Sarah Popelka-Filcoff is the Rock Art Australia Minderoo Foundation Chair in Archaeological Science in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Her expertise is in the integration of advanced technical approaches into multidisciplinary projects in cultural heritage chemistry and archaeological science. She conducted the first comprehensive, integrative characterisation of Australian natural mineral pigments on cultural heritage materials using several analytical methods to determine where they came from and their composition. Through the characterisation of ochre used by Indigenous Australians for cultural and material exchange, her work has provided unprecendented insight into Indigenous culture in Australia.

Early life and education
Rachel grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She received her B.A. in Archaeology and Classics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999. She completed her PhD in Chemistry in 2006 from the University of Missouri-Columbia and MURR (Missouri University Research Reactor) with J. David Robertson and Michael Glascock as joint supervisors for her archaeological science thesis entitled “Applications of Elemental Analysis for Archaeometric Studies: Analytical and Statistical Methods for Understanding Geochemical Trends in Ceramics, Ochre and Obsidian”. This research examined provenance and compositional analysis across several geo-archaeological materials, and in particular demonstrated that ochre (Fe mineral pigments) can be provenanced based on their elemental characterisation. Her PhD was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Career and impact
Rachel completed her postdoctoral studies at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (2007-2008), in the Material Measurement Laboratory and NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR), where she contributed to international analytical methods with a focus on basic analytical metrological science and statistics for neutron activation analysis. From 2009-2020, she was at Flinders University and from 2010-2016 she was an AINSE Research Fellow. She established several novel approaches to the characterisation of ochre and determination of its provenance. In May 2020 Rachel commenced her current position at the University of Melbourne as the R. A. A. Minderoo Chair in Archaeological Science in the Department of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Rachel’s internationally recognised research strengths are in the following areas: the development of high-resolution, high sensitivity and in some cases non-destructive methods for the analysis of cultural objects and materials to re-create ancient exchange routes and to inform on cultural technologies. Her characterisation of Australian-specific materials developed new data and approaches for these materials.

Rachel was elected Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (FRACI) in 2019 and was the South Australian Young Tall Poppy of the Year in 2012. Rachel leads in the Society of Archaeological Sciences (president elect 2015-2017, president 2017-2019, past president 2019-present), and is on the editorial board of Journal of Archaeological Science. She has had her research profiled in several scientific and general media outlets such as Cosmos Magazine, The Conversation, Chemistry in Australia, and Chemistry World, and radio and television interviews.

Awards and honours
South Australian Young Tall Poppy of the Year 2012

AINSE Research Fellowship 2010

Research Associate Program Fellowship, National Research Council, USA

Graduate Research Fellowship, National Research Council, USA

Selected works
Pierce, D. E.;  Wright, P. J.; Popelka-Filcoff, R. S., Seeing red: an Analysis of Archeological hematite in east central Missouri. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 2020, 12 (1). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-019-00984-4

M Polkinghorne, CA Morton, A Roberts, RS Popelka-Filcoff, Y Sato Voeun Vuthy, Pariwat Thammapreechakorn, Attila Stopic, Peter Grave, Don Hein, Leng Vitou. (2019) Consumption and exchange in Early Modern Cambodia: NAA of brown-glaze stoneware from Longvek, 15th–17th centuries. PloS ONE 14 (5), e02168952019

Roberts, A., Burke, H., Pring, A.,  Zhao, J., Gibson, C., Popelka-Filcoff, R.S., Thredgold, J. Bland, C. (2018). Engravings and rock coatings at Pudjinuk Rockshelter No. 2, South Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 18 pp. 272-284.

Lenehan C.E., Tobe S.S., Smith R.J., Popelka-Filcoff R.S. (2017) Microbial Composition Analyses By 16S rRNA Sequencing: A Proof Of Concept Approach To Provenance Determination Of Archaeological Ochre PLOS ONE. 2017 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185252

Rachel Sarah Popelka-Filcoff, Claire E Lenehan, Enzo Lombi, Erica Donner, Daryl L Howard, Martin Daly de Jonge, David Paterson, Keryn Walshe, Allan Pring. Novel application of X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) for the non-destructive micro-elemental analysis of natural mineral pigments on Aboriginal Australian objects. Analyst,  2016 141, 3657-3667 DOI 10.1039/C5AN02065D. part of Emerging Investigators Issue, highlighted on back cover

Rachel Sarah Popelka-Filcoff, Claire E Lenehan, Enzo Lombi, Erica Donner, Daryl L Howard, Martin Daly de Jonge, David Paterson, Keryn Walshe, Allan Pring. ''Microelemental characterisation of Aboriginal Australian natural Fe oxide pigments. '' Analytical Methods, 7, 7363 – 7380 2015, part of Emerging Investigators Issue  doi: 10.1039/C5AY01547B

Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff, Alan Mauger, Claire E. Lenehan, Keryn Walshe and Allan Pring. HyLogger ™Near-Infrared Spectral Analysis: A Non-destructive Mineral Analysis for Aboriginal Australian Objects. Analytical Methods, 6, 1309-1316 2014. Doi: 10.1039/C3AY41436A  Highlighted on cover

Tiffany Reeves, Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff, and Claire Lenehan. Towards identification of traditional European and Indigenous Australian paint binders using Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) Analytica Chimica Acta, 803: 194-203  2013

Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff, Claire E. Lenehan, Keryn Walshe, John W. Bennett, Attila Stopic, Philip Jones, Allan Pring, Jamie S. Quinton, and Andrew Durham. Characterisation of Ochre Sources in South Australia. Journalof the Anthropological Society of South Australia, Vol 35 2012.

Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff, Claire E. Lenehan, Michael D. Glascock, John W. Bennett, Attila Stopic, Jamie S. Quinton, Allan Pring and Keryn Walshe. Evaluation of Relative Comparator and k0-NAA for Characterization of Aboriginal Australian Ochre. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 291(1) 19-24 2012  doi: 10.1007/s10967-011-1236-2

Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff, J. David Robertson, Michael D. Glascock and Christophe Descantes. Trace Element Characterization of Ochre from Geological Sources. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 272 (1) pp 17-27 2007 doi: 10.1007/s10967-006-6836-x